Consuming Kids - The Commercialization of Childhood (2008)

Like never before, children today are plagued by a variety of ills, from violence to hyper-sexualization to obesity to rampant materialism. Consuming Kids connects these dots, showing how these problems all relate back to corporate marketers preying on our children for profit. Watching this movie will open the eyes of everyone who cares about children to the disturbing new realities of our consumer culture.

Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.

Praise for the Film
"This powerful, disturbing and heartbreaking film has the power to change the way we Americans treat our children. It is the best possible parent education product. I recommend it to schools, universities, churches, mosques and synagogues."
- Mary Pipher | Author of Reviving Ophelia

"Consuming Kids is an invaluable resource for parents, teachers, health care professionals, and anyone wanting to foster children's well-being. This film will be opening eyes and sparking discussion in psychology, media and cultural studies, sociology, health, and economics classrooms for years to come. As a professor of media and children's culture, and as a parent, this is the film I've been waiting for."
- Lynn Phillips | Author of Flirting with Danger: Young Women's Reflections on Sexuality and Domination

"Consuming Kids delivers an urgent message to parents, educators, and government regulators about the troubling intrusion of marketing into children's lives. Watch this – and then turn off your kids' TV."
- Pamela Paul | Author of Parenting, Inc.

"Like never before, children today are plagued by a variety of ills, from violence to hyper-sexualization to obesity to rampant materialism. Consuming Kids connects these dots, showing how these problems all relate back to corporate marketers preying on our children for profit. Watching this movie will open the eyes of everyone who cares about children to the disturbing new realities of our consumer culture."
- Tim Kasser | Associate Professor of Psychology at Knox College | Author of The High Price of Materialism

"This film graphically reveals a lack of corporate respect for the young. We have a moral duty to transform societal values and create a culture that respects the children with whose care we are entrusted. Now is the time to call for a child-honoring protocol for commerce."
- Raffi Cavoukian, C.M. | Singer | Author & Founder of Child Honoring

"This film is a damning indictment of an advertising industry whose only concern is brainwashing kids as early as possible, no matter what the consequences. The film's powerful images that back up the experts' claims are jaw-dropping. And if you think it's all up to parents to protect their kids from the onslaught of corporate marketing, this film will convince you otherwise. Consuming Kids should be viewed by anyone who has kids or cares about them; in other words, everyone."
- Michele Simon, JD, MPH | Author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back | Research and Policy Director of the Marin Institute

"A comprehensive and compelling look at how childhood in America has been sacrificed to the free market. This film helps parents, caregivers and educators to start thinking differently about popular culture and children, and what needs to change."
- Susan Rogers | Editor & publisher of MediaLiteracy.com

"Marketing to children is pervasive, powerfully effective, and pernicious. This film paints a compelling picture of our children being initiated into consumerism almost from birth, as if it is a special club, and shows how important it is to stop the madness."
- Kelly D. Brownell, Ph.D. | Professor of Psychology, Epidemiology and Public Health | Director of Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University

"This film is a riveting and compelling expose of the enormous - and enormously cynical - enterprise devoted to transforming our children from kids into consumers. Anyone who wonders why kids are so demanding of brand-name products must see it. This film provides tons of evidence to explain why we need federal regulation of marketing to children, and the sooner the better."
- Marion Nestle | Professor of Nutrition at New York University | Author of Food Politics and What to Eat

"Consuming Kids is one of the best films I have seen in years that explores the various ways in which the identities, values, and future of young people are held hostage to a world shaped by the poisonous culture of consumption and commodification. Every school should buy this film and learn from it. And every parent, educator, and concerned citizen should watch this film if they believe kids deserve a more just world and future."
- Henry Giroux | Professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University | Author of Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability?

"Consuming Kids is my all time favorite video exploring the negative aspects of advertising in all venues and on all media platforms. It is a wonderfully produced and thought out documentary that remarkably and informatively covers so many critical areas of how corporate America uses its power to amorally define, research, and manipulate various demographic segments of society. In so doing, the film homes in on corporate marketing strategies designed to maximize impact and sales – and the health of children and teens be damned! This exceptional film will be a service to schools, parents, and children for many years to come."
- Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D. | Senior Editor, Journal of Media Psychology

"Every parent, stepparent and family professional must understand the impact of marketing on children. The most efficient and compelling way to begin is to watch Consuming Kids, the film that will open your eyes to the biggest difference between today and when we were kids: sophisticated and pervasive marketing to children. Your kids can't afford for you to wait."
- Joe Kelly | TheDadMan.com | Author of Dads & Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand and Support Your Daughter

"Consuming Kids shines a bright and probing light on the powerful forces of commercialism that are reshaping childhood. Contemporary marketers have developed a panoply of techniques – from focus groups to "parties in a box" to brain research – for engaging and influencing children, often under the radar of parents. The tentacles of modern marketing now penetrate every aspect of children's lives – on television, in school, and through an array of new digital media, including interactive games, mobile phones, and 3-D virtual worlds. With its vivid imagery, this thoughtful and well-researched documentary explains it all."
- Kathryn C. Montgomery, PhD. | Professor of Communication at American University | Author of Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet

"An outstanding film with an urgent message, Consuming Kids is remarkably researched and elegantly executed. It leaves no room for doubt that relentless marketing to children is hurting their mental and physical health. Turning a child's sandbox, filled with so much imaginative potential, into a shopping mall is a crime. It is not what children consume, but what they are directed to think and feel about themselves and their world that is really at stake."
- Chyng Sun, Ph.D. | Creator of Mickey Mouse Monopoly