Exploiting Childhood

How Fast Food, Material Obsession and Porn Culture are Creating New Forms of Child Abuse

Children deserve to live a life that is safe from exploitation and harm, but are we failing in our duty to protect them?

Childhood today is big business - it is impossible for any child growing up to avoid pervasive and intense marketing from companies. Whether it be for fatty foods resulting in childhood obesity, expensive franchised toys which encourage tension within families and stigma among friends, or 'pornified' role models who pervert children's ideas of sexuality, research clearly shows that commercial pressures are having a direct impact on children's psychological development and health. This book draws together a series of hard-hitting articles contributed by key thinkers on child welfare and child psychology including Oliver James, Susie Orbach and Gail Dines. Together they identify new and emerging forms of child exploitation, and editor Jim Wild constructs a powerful argument for why current child protection procedures designed to protect children from abuse are no longer adequate.

Outspoken and challenging, this book invites us to consider our responsibility for preventing the harm children are experiencing, and is required reading for anyone concerned with the welfare of children.