Why are British children so unhappy?

For more than five years, evidence has been mounting that children in Britain are worse off than those in other developed countries.

Back in 2007, Unicef published a table of 21 economically advanced countries. It compared 40 indicators -- poverty, family relationships, health and safety, education and children's own sense of happiness -- that might affect the wellbeing of children.

Top of the list were the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. At the bottom, in 21st place, was the UK, just below the United States. The report concluded, essentially, that children growing up in the UK were the unhappiest in the industrialised world, and that parents in more than half the countries surveyed spent more time "just talking" to their children than did those in the UK; and that just 40% of UK 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds find their peers "kind and helpful".

Four years later, a second report form the UN body found that while children themselves said their happiness relied more on time spent with family and friends and "having plenty to do outdoors", UK parents -- particularly in lower-income households -- instead felt under "tremendous pressure" to ply them with consumer goods. Earlier this year, the Children's Society found that at any given moment, one in 11 children in the UK aged between eight and 15 have a low sense of wellbeing. And according to the ONS, one in 10 UK children aged between five and 16 has a clinically diagnosed mental health disorder

In response to this avalanche of bad news, a new group, the Save Childhood Movement, launches this week. Bringing together childcare experts, welfare organisations and academics, it aims to highlight the exceptional pressures that modern life imposes on childhood. "It's about bringing together all these voices, all these concerns, to form a critical mass and get a real conversation going," says Richard House of the university of Roehampton.

The movement's development director, Wendy Ellyatt, says the statistics relating to childhood wellbeing in the UK are now "genuinely extraordinary". Drawing on evidence from experts including educationalists, psychologists, neuroscientists and biologists in key fields such as child wellbeing, the importance of family relationships, the purpose of education, the role of play, children's connection with nature, the impact of digital technology, the commercialisation of childhood, the group aims eventually to mount a coherent call for change.

"Children in the UK are among the most pressured, unhappy and commercially vulnerable in the western world," Ellyatt says. "The cultural and environmental tensions are unprecedented. And in this country more than others, we have focused away from children and the family, and on to work and the economy." The new group, she says, "doesn't necessarily have the answers. But what we can't say any longer is that we don't have a problem."