The Melbourne Anglican Archbishop, Dr. Philip Freier, issued a call to both major parties to create a national inquiry to examine the state of childhood in Australia, as childhood depression is heading towards a crisis-point.
In the latest series of public breakfast conversation which was held on Wednesday in Federation Square, Melbourne, Dr. Freier bemoaned the lost of innocence among children today, saying their self-image was being distorted by advertising, the media and the Internet.
"…Children have a right to their childhood, but we are stealing it away, particularly because of advertising, the media and the internet, and the pressures on children and young people to be obsessed with body image, fashion and sex," Dr. Freier said.
Describing the situation that today's youth confronts, Melinda Tankard Reist, the Director of Women's Forum Australia who joined the breakfast with the Archbishop, said we had created a 'toxic' culture where one in five children are suffering from some sort of eating disorder due to the hyper-sexualised messages being seen by children in public spaces.
"We're seeing the 'pornification' of the public space. Children are exposed to hyper-sexualised messages, to idealised, airbrushed sexual images that tell them 'this is how you should be,' Ms. Reist said.
Posing a rhetorical question, Ms. Reist lamented that parents were powerless given the prevalence of 'pornographied' billboards every time they drove their children to school.
"Everyone asks why can't parents do more, but what can parents do when they have to drive past 'pornographied' billboards every day on the way to school?"
Professor Alasdair Vance, the Head of Academic Child Psychiatry, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, also joined with Dr. Freier in the breakfast series, said that Australia has seen a fourfold increase in depression amongst under-18 in the last 30 years and added the cause of the increase was due to environmental changes rather than genetics.
A petition is currently being circulated for concerned people to sign to urge politicians to support this inquiry.