Media controls needed to stop child sexualisation

London: Lads' mags should carry an age warning and music videos with sexual posing should not be shown until late in the evening to help combat the sexualisation of children, a report commissioned by the British government said yesterday.

The report also said video game consoles and mobile phones should be sold with parental controls already switched on, and that an online "one-stop-shop" should be set up for the public to voice concerns about irresponsible marketing.

Psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos, the report's author, said children and young people were exposed to growing amounts of "hyper-sexualised images", and were also sold the idea they had to look "hot" and "sexy".

"As such, they are facing pressures that children in the past simply did not have to face," the report said.

Rise

"While sexualised images have featured in advertising and communications since mass media first emerged, what we are seeing now is an unprecedented rise in both the volume and the extent to which these images are impinging on everyday life."

This impacted on young people's "mental and physical health, attitudes and beliefs" and led some children to suffering poor self-esteem and eating disorders, it said.

The report, which forms part of the government's strategy to tackle violence against women, comes a week after the opposition Conservatives said they would take action against companies guilty of sexualising children.

Conservative leader David Cameron said his party would bring in measures to tackle irresponsible marketing practices aimed at children and companies that breached advertising guidelines.

The theme is likely to become a major issue for the major parties in Britain's upcoming general election.

"We know that parents are concerned about the pressure their children are under at a much younger age, which is why we have already committed to a number of the recommendations in this report," said Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

The study highlighted magazines as an issue, with the trend of dressing children provocatively and the sexualised ideals of young, thin beauty.

"A dominant theme in magazines seems to be the need for girls to present themselves as sexually desirable in order to attract male attention," it said.

Publications aimed at young men, so-called lads' mags which feature pictures of scantily clad women, were also a problem.

"Lads' mags contain a high degree of highly sexualised images of women that blur the lines between pornography and mainstream media," the report said.

The report's 36 recommendations included: A ratings system for photographs to show the extent to which they have been digitally altered. Music videos with sexual posing or sexually aggressive lyrics to be broadcast only after 9pm.

Recommendation

Lads' mags should be marked as recommended for sale to only those age 15 and over, and placed away from children's view in the same way as raunchy magazines. The government should stop allowing adverts for jobs in the entertainment industry to be placed in job centres.

"I wanted to ensure that this was not an opinion piece, but a review based on real data and academic research which will help generate further debate and inform decisions about how to address these issues," Papadopoulos said.

Do you agree with the report? Do the images in magazines have a negative impact on young children? Should these images portray the real picture, instead?