Going to the movies is one of my favourite things to do. So 'Fashion Month' seemed an appropriate time to see the acclaimed documentary The September Issue.

September is the most important month in northern hemisphere couture. The autumn/winter collections are presented with great fanfare in the fashion capitals of New York, London, Paris and Milan. The designers clamour to have their styles featured in the publications that matter. And with haute couture, there is little more important than Vogue and its legendary editor, Anna Wintour.
The documentary captures the frenetic months that precede the issue's release and the enormous creative and marketing efforts involved. Global fashion, according to the documentary, is a $300 billion industry. It is a world where supermodels are international celebrities and celebrities from the fields of entertainment and sport vie with supermodels to grace magazine covers. It is glamorous, expensive and exclusive; a world denied entry to most, but for the tantalising glimpses from the pages of a glossy publication such as Vogue.
It is an adult world, however, that is impacting upon children and childhood.
Once upon a time there was a clear delineation between childhood and adulthood. A child was "a child" until the day he reached adulthood. The term, "teenager", never evolved until the earlier 20th century when labour reforms and the extension of compulsory education removed the majority of teens from the workforce. From the 1940s, the term became widely used in connection with merchandise and advertising.
We live in a fast-paced world that grows faster by the day, exposing children to countless images via magazines, advertising billboards and electronic media in particular.
In little more than 30 years, New Zealand homes have advanced from accessing one state-owned television channel and a handful of radio stations to an unlimited range of global news, sport and entertainment via cable television and the internet. Access is cheap and plentiful, providing product to satisfy all tastes. It is an electronic wonderland.
Being neither a Luddite nor someone who is fearful of technology, I love the freedom it offers the individual.
But not all of which is freely available is suitable for children. I believe that children are not adults and thus require adequate protection until such time. Included in those protections is non-exposure to adult material, the latter of which abounds in today's entertainment world in which fashion features so prominently.
Music clips on television and the internet feature explicit material from wafer-thin, scantily-dressed young women designed to target younger markets. A recent offering from singer Britney Spears is entitled, ‘If you seek Amy', the title of which you probably shouldn't dwell upon for too long, but it's not about looking for her. And there is now a newly created market to exploit, 'Tweens', a term to describe pre-pubescent kids between childhood and teenage years, ie ages 9-12. Nine, apparently, is now too old to just be playing with dolls and dominoes.
So what of the impact upon children? From a fashion perspective, the obsession with body image, particularly for girls, has been documented for decades. According to a
2008 Channel 4 production, some 80 per cent of UK 11-14 year olds routinely worry about their weight. But in the last couple of years, British health professionals have noticed a shocking rise in the number of 8-10 year olds developing anorexia nervosa, with a staggering 75 per cent of 7 year olds wanting to be thinner.
Rhodes Farm is a specialist treatment facility in England for eating disorders.
Its founder, Dr Dee Dawson, believes that children are increasingly being robbed of their childhood with girls as young as five talking disparagingly of their bodies. She believes that fashion magazines contribute to the pressure for children to grow up years before their time. Interestingly, she is also critical of the nutritional promotion of low fat diets and the advice to avoid ‘evil fats'.
It would seem that health authorities, in their determination to battle obesity, may be inadvertently creating other problems in the form of eating disorders. It is reasonable to assume similar outcomes in other western countries.
Regarding technology, the sole television in the corner of the living room that once entertained the family en masse, while censoring itself in the process, has been replaced by multiple televisions and personal computers rendering parental censorship a difficult task. While there is technology available to limit child internet access, the worlds of television programming and advertising are largely run by young adults who enjoy pushing boundaries. Fair enough, but what can you do if you don't approve of material screened during children's viewing hours?
The short answer is to turn the television off, but that doesn't solve the issue of patently irresponsible programming and advertising scheduling. If we were able to individually pick and choose our television programming as we pick and choose our reading material, family-friendly channels featuring appropriate advertising would evolve to meet the demand. Similarly, other channels would accommodate the adult market while neither dictating to the other, self-censorship always preferable to any imposed alternative. Unfortunately, the state's one-size-fits-all approach to broadcasting serves only to impose, at public expense, its programming and advertising standards upon everyone while being accountable to no-one and lowering the bar for all, as per the current situation.
The moral of the story is simple: The printed material in your home is there of your volition; you chose it. But when you don't pay for something yourself; when it's foisted upon you, like it or not; you lose the right to determine that personal choice.
Meanwhile your children remain vulnerable, exposed to material beyond their years, which is perhaps how a leading local kids' clothing chain came to market minuscule
bras for eight year olds with nothing to put in them. I've seen bigger band-aids.
Best leave lingerie to its real market and allow little girls to worry about nothing more than their next spelling test.

Guest post by Susan Ryder