How on earth did we come to this?

We protect our children obsessively from every harm; we scrutinize every carer, teacher or doctor with whom they come into contact.

Yet despite all this, one group, which in no way has their best interests at heart, has almost unconstrained access.

We seem to take it for granted that advertisers and marketers are allowed to condition even the youngest children.

Before children have even developed a proper sense of their own identity, or learned to handle money, they're encouraged to associate status and self-worth with stuff, and to look to external things such as fame and wealth for validation.

We're turning out little consumers rather than young citizens who will value themselves for what they contribute to the society in which they live.

We've reached this point so gradually that many of us have never questioned it.

It's crept up on us in the 60 years since advertisers started to target the young and found that they could recruit them to a commercial assault on their parents.

We've come to know it as "pester power" or the ability of children to pressure parents to make certain purchases.

Many psychologists, child development experts and educators point to research suggesting that this emerging cradle-to-grave consumerism is contributing to growing rates of low self-esteem, depression and other forms of mental illness.