Consuming Kids The Hostile Takeover of Childhood [Hardcover]

With the intensity of the California gold rush, corporations are racing to stake their claim on the consumer group formerly known as children. What was once the purview of a handful of companies has escalated into a gargantuan enterprise estimated at over $15 billion annually. While parents struggle to set limits at home, marketing executives work day and night to undermine their efforts with irresistible messages.

InConsuming Kids, psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at the demographic advertisers call the kid market, taking readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern childhood as envisioned by commercial interests. Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books. All aspects of childrens lives  their health, education, creativity, and values  are at risk of being compromised by their status in the marketplace.

Interweaving real-life stories of marketing to children, child development theory, the latest research, and what marketing experts themselves say about their work, Linn reveals the magnitude of this problem and shows what can be done about it. With a foreword written by research psychologist and author Penelope Leach,Consuming Kidsis a call to action for parents, educators, legislators and anyone who cares about the health and well-being of children.

This book is a powerful warning and wake-up call about the obvious and subtle ways our consumer culture is deliberately sending messages to our children that are shaping their lives.
Marian Wright Edelman, President, Childrens Defense Fund

A splendid booka call to arms for parents today.Consuming Kidslays out the ingredients of a fight back, giving control to parents and their children. Our children as consumers are being consumed. We can and must take back out parental roles in this media battle.
T. Berry BrazeltonlCT