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The New First Amendment and Its Implications for Combating Obesity Through Regulation of Advertising

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Advances in Communication Research to Reduce Childhood Obesity
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Abstract

For at least three generations, Americans have taken for granted that the government may pass laws governing food and product safety, truth in advertising, lending, and other important features of modern life. Today, however, policies that would have seemed unremarkable in the past are facing constitutional challenges. This development is the result of a campaign by large corporations to muster the First Amendment as a defense against governmental intervention in commercial activity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010).

  2. 2.

    Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc., 131 S. Ct. 2653 (2011).

  3. 3.

    Brown v. Entm’t Merch. Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729 (2011).

  4. 4.

    Federal Trade Commission (2011). Interagency Working Group on food marketed to children: Preliminary proposed nutrition principles to guide industry self-regulatory efforts. http://www.ftc.gov/os/2011/04/110428foodmarketproposedguide.pdf.

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  6. 6.

    Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748 (1976).

  7. 7.

    US Const. amend. I.

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    See, e.g., Citizens United v. Fed. Election Com’n, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010) (overruling precedent set in Austin v. Mich. Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990)).

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    Cf. Barry, B. (2007). Speechless: The erosion of free expression in the American Workplace (explaining that private actors such as employers are free to restrict speech they find disagreeable).

  13. 13.

    See Valentine v. Christensen, 316 U.S. 52 (1942), abrogated by Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976).

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    See Calfee, J. E. (1997). Fear of persuasion: A new perspective on advertising and regulation 5 (the common view was that advertising was wasteful, “distorted consumer information and preferences and was a tool for creating or buttressing monopoly power.”). See also Posner, R. A. (1969). The Federal Trade Commission, 37; Chi, U. (1969). L. Rev. 47–89; Posner, R. A. Regulation of advertising by the FTC (American Enterprise Institute 1973).

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  16. 16.

    Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748 (1976).

  17. 17.

    Id. at 770.

  18. 18.

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  19. 19.

    Id. at 765.

  20. 20.

    Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557, 566 (1980).

  21. 21.

    See, e.g., N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) (protecting false speech made regarding a public figure on matter of public concern so long as it was not made knowingly or recklessly).

  22. 22.

    Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy, 425 U.S. at 777 (Stewart, J., concurring).

  23. 23.

    Id.

  24. 24.

    Central Hudson, 447 U.S. at 566.

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  28. 28.

    See Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525, 571 (2001); Thompson v. W. States Med. Ctr., 535 U.S. 357, 377 (2002); Sorrell, 131 S. Ct. at 2673 (2011).

  29. 29.

    Piety, T. R. (2006). Free advertising: The case for public relations as commercial speech. Lewis and Clark Law Review, 10, 367–413. See also Piety, T. R. (2012). Brandishing the first amendment: Commercial expression in America. University of Michigan Press.

  30. 30.

    Citizens United (2010). 130 S. Ct. at 898–99.

  31. 31.

    See. e.g., Thomas, J. (concurring). Lorillard Tobacco, 533 U.S. at 572.

  32. 32.

    Ky, W. D. (2010). Commonwealth Brands, Inc. v. United States, 678 F. Supp. 2d 512.

  33. 33.

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  34. 34.

    Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc., 131 S. Ct. 2653 (2011).

  35. 35.

    Id. at 2667.

  36. 36.

    Piety, T. R. (2007) Market failure in the marketplace of ideas: Commercial speech and the problem that won’t go away. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 41, 181.

  37. 37.

    Cf. Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525 (2001) (ruling that Massachusetts’ tobacco advertising restrictions, though ostensibly directed at advertising received by children, in fact prohibited a great deal of speech intended for adults).

  38. 38.

    See Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919).

  39. 39.

    See, e.g., Westen, T. (2006). Government regulation of food marketing to children: The Federal Trade Commission and the Kid-Vid Controversy. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 39, 79.

  40. 40.

    Id. at 83–84.

  41. 41.

    Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729 (2011).

  42. 42.

    Id. at 2736.

  43. 43.

    Committee on Communications (2006). Policy statement: Children, adolescents and advertising. Pediatrics, 118(6), 2563.

  44. 44.

    Kunkel, D., et al. (2004). Report of the APA task force on advertising and children (American Psychological Association 2004). Available at http://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/advertising-children.pdf.

  45. 45.

    Kunkel, D. (2010). Commentary: Mismeasurement of children’s understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising. Journal of Children and Media, 4(1), 109.

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    Mills, C. M., & Keil, F. C. (2005). The development of cynicism. Psychological Science, 16, 385.

  47. 47.

    Graff, S., Kunkel, D., Mermin, S. (2012). Government can regulate food advertising to children because cognitive research shows it is inherently misleading. Health Affairs, 31(2), 392–398.

  48. 48.

    Pechmann, C., Levine, L., Loughlin, S., Leslie, F. (2005). Impulsive and self-conscious: Adolescents’ vulnerability to advertising and promotion. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 24(2), 202; see also Harris, J. L., Brownell, K. D., Bargh, J. A. (2009). The food marketing defense model: Integrating psychological research to protect youth and inform public policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 3(1), 211.

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    Pradeep, A. K. (2010). The buying brain: Secrets of selling to the subconscious. Mind. John Wiley & Sons; Binet, L., Field, P. (2009). Empirical generalizations about advertising campaign success. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(2), 130

  50. 50.

    Harris, Brownwell & Bargh, supra note 49.

  51. 51.

    Harris, J., & Graff, S. (2012). Protecting young people from junk food advertising: Implications of psychological research for first amendment law. American Journal Public Health, 102(2), 214.

  52. 52.

    See e.g., Thomas, J. (concurring). Lorillard Tobacco, 533 U.S. at 587.

  53. 53.

    Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U.S. 476 (1995).

  54. 54.

    Lorillard Tobacco, 533 U.S. 525; Ginsberg v. State of New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944).

  55. 55.

    Lorillard Tobacco, 533 U.S. at 587 (citations omitted).

  56. 56.

    Id.

  57. 57.

    44 Liquormart v. Rhode Island, 517 U.S. 484, 503, 510 (1996).

  58. 58.

    Brown v. Entm’t Merchs., 131 S. Ct. at 2736.

  59. 59.

    Id.at 2741.

  60. 60.

    See In re Interagency Working Group, supra note 5, at 9.

  61. 61.

    Lorillard Tobacco, 533 U.S. at 556–61, Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U.S. 761, 771 (1993).

  62. 62.

    In re Interagency Working Group, supra note 5, at 24, n.42.

  63. 63.

    Michael McGinnis, J. (2006). Food marketing to children and youth: Threat or opportunity? Institute of Medicine 2006.

  64. 64.

    See, e.g., Mokdad, A. H., et al. (2003). Prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and obesity-related health risk factors. Journal of American Medical Association, 289(1), 76.

  65. 65.

    See, e.g., Christopher, J. L., Murray, Lopez, A. D. (1997). Global mortality, disability, and the contribution of risk factors: Global burden of disease. Lancet, 349, 1436.

  66. 66.

    Brown v. Entm’t Merchs., 131 S. Ct. at 2739 (first emphasis added; second in the original) (quoting Video Software Dealers Ass’n v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F.3d 950, 964 (9th Cir. 2009).

  67. 67.

    Anderson, C. A., et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science, 4(3), 81, 82.

  68. 68.

    Brown v. Entm’t Merchs., 131 S. Ct. at 2761 (Breyer, J., dissenting); see also id. at 2771–78 (appendices to the dissent collecting literature on the topic of psychological harm resulting from playing violent video games).

  69. 69.

    Id. at 2769.

  70. 70.

    Id.

  71. 71.

    Lorillard Tobacco, 533 U.S. at 563.

  72. 72.

    Id. at 535–36.

  73. 73.

    Id. at 564.

  74. 74.

    See, e.g., Westen, supra note 40, at 85.

  75. 75.

    Smolla, R. D. (2004). Free the Fortune 500! The Debate over Corporate Speech and the First Amendment. 54 Case Western Reserve Law Review, 1277, 1292.

  76. 76.

    Id.

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Graff, S., Piety, T. (2013). The New First Amendment and Its Implications for Combating Obesity Through Regulation of Advertising. In: Williams, J., Pasch, K., Collins, C. (eds) Advances in Communication Research to Reduce Childhood Obesity. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5511-0_5

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