So kids are being forced to "act and dress like mini-adults" say a glittering group of more than 100 authors, educationalists and physiologists, who have penned a damning letter calling on the government to save childhood before it's killed off, writes Helen Mooney
Not only are clothes killing kids, the group blames a litany of modern day cultural norms, which, if not stopped now, will herald a downward spiral for today's children.
Children's laureate Michael Morpugo highlights the "drip, drip effect" of modern technology and bad diets for stunting kids natural growth.
Bombarded with junk food as opposed to "real food" means children are struggling to grow as real human beings. Cue Jamie Oliver et al nodding vociferously.
Other no no's include technology, which apparently has kids glued to their desks playing computer games and watching DVDs rather than playing outside, which is surely better for them?
But what are parents to do? Today's judgment from the experts adds yet another anxiety as they pick through the pressurised environment that is modern day parenting.
Often the pressures being exerted on children are from outside influences - forceful TV advertising from large multinationals encouraging them to eat junk food and dress in the latest designer clothes.
Parents struggle to deny their children the latest gadgets in the fear that they will miss out.
Teachers too are stuck in a difficult place. It is their job to implement government's ever increasing plethora of targets that could well be stifling children's social growth. But in practical terms, how can teachers ease the pressure on pupils? Indeed, should they? No one is going to thank them if their students don't get the GCSEs they need to survive as adults.
It's easy to blame parents and teachers for robbing children of their childhoods, but it is a more complex set of factors at play that needs to be addressed to stop the alleged rot.
It's an increasingly common argument that children must play in the same way as previous generations. "Electronic media", films and computer games - naturally - are at fault for stifling their growth
The letter's "experts" also find the government at fault for setting a raft of targets that mean children are under increasing pressure to perform academically.
Children are being put in a "straightjacket" early in life restricting their natural development, says the letter.
But can we blame all the ills of modern day childhood on the adults that establish it? Is it the need to protect and mollycoddle as well as the pressure to succeed at everything that has parents passing on learned anxieties and mental health issues to their offspring?
A book, The Price of Privilege, just published in America by psychologist Madeline Levine focuses on the breed of parent who interferes in every aspect of their child's life.
Dr Levine says that some parents' drive for success in their offspring has the diametrically opposite effect, generating feelings of emptiness, depression, and disconnection in them.
Dr Levine says that rather than assuming that money and status safeguard children's emotional health, parents must be forced to accept that a degree of freedom and the time to play is what children most desperately need.
