Why are so many more children and teenagers showing signs of stress, anxiety, depression and angry behaviour now than they were? There is no simple answer, but evidence is growing that some of the blame lies with our increasingly consumerist society.
In her book Born to Buy, Juliet Schor describes research she carried out with ten to thirteen-year-old children in two areas around Boston, Massachusetts. She looked at the link between consumer involvement and mental health, concluding that ‘high consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints’.
Does the same hold in the UK? Evidence submitted to The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry seems to suggest so. Among the thousands of submissions received from professionals, the public and children themselves, were expressions of serious concern that increasing commercialisation is damaging children’s wellbeing
One 10-year-old girl told the inquiry: ‘A lot of the time I feel I have to follow the trends and if I don’t people just laugh at me! I think people should stop following the trends and have their own style!’ Two recent surveys suggest this is a widespread feeling among UK children. A study of 16 and 17-year-olds carried out the University of Cambridge showed a strong association in both boys and girls between depressive, anxious and obsessive symptoms and high material dissatisfaction. Children with ‘moderate means’, appeared to be significantly more materially dissatisfied compared to those in the higher social groups, but not when compared to the really ‘hard-pressed’ group. Perhaps the really badly off could not imagine being more prosperous.
The National Consumer Council report, Watching, Wanting and Wellbeing, found that 9-13 year old children who were more materialistic had lower self-esteem and a lower opinion of their parents. Children in schools in deprived areas were much more motivated by money than those in affluent areas. 69 per cent of children in the deprived schools surveyed agreed with the statement that the only kind of job they wanted when they were grown up was ‘one that got them lots of money’, compared to 28 per cent of those in affluent areas.
If children are being subjected to more materialistic pressures than they were and increasing materialism affects the disadvantaged more than the affluent, one would expect the gap in the rates of child mental health between rich and poor to have widened. This is exactly what seems to have happened. Studies carried out in the UK in the 1960s found only weak links between social class and psychological problems. In contrast, national surveys of child mental health carried out in 1994 and 2004 suggest that, depending on the measure used, poor children have two or three times the rates of disorder of the better off. It seems that being poor is more of a problem now than it used to be.
All these studies suggest that it is likely that the fact that children are living in an increasingly consumerist society is one of the causes of a rise in mental health problems.
The government is aware of this problem. The recommendations of a number of current inquiries, such as The Good Childhood Inquiry and the review into children and new technology being chaired by Tanya Byron, will be relevant. But it will not be easy to find answers. Children’s materialism is modelled on that of their parents, their wealthier friends and on the behaviour of the media celebrities whose images are so pervasive. A high level of consumer spending seems necessary for the health of our economy. Putting more money into the pockets of the poor and curbing the incomes of the rich would seem a fair solution, but successive governments have failed to find a way to achieve this in an electorally acceptable way. So do we just have to accept that economic growth has to be bought at the expense of our children’s mental health? I can’t be alone in feeling that cannot be right.