"First the came for the Frankenberry, and I said nothing..."
“The intent of the First Amendment was to protect political and religious speech. I cannot believe that the intent of the First Amendment was to protect the right of food companies to market junk foods to kids.”
—- Nutrition advocate, NYU professor and blogger Marion Nestle, arguing that the government should censor advertising “aimed directly at children,” in the interests of public health.
I should not need to lay out the slippery slope perils of accepting a definition of the First Amendment’s free speech guaranty that limits its protection only to “political and religious speech.” For a professor at a prestigious university to advocate this because it would make her own pet crusade easier should send chills up the spines of every citizen. Let’s see…what kind of speech isn’t political or religious? Commercial speech…artistic speech…workplace speech…academic speech… To zealots like Prof. Nestle, all of this, as well as the liberty it bolsters, should be put at risk in the pursuit of skinnier children, by designating the government to assume the parental function of teaching good eating habits.
By the way, Professor—no food is marketed “directly” to children, unless an adult allows the child to buy the food directly. This asinine argument about advertising to children has been raging for about 50 years, with speech-hostile advocates always forgetting that 1) parents have both the authority and the control and 2) learning that marketing and advertising are manipulative and deceitful is one of the crucial lessons of childhood. Escape childhood without learning that “delicious Frankenberry Cereal is the perfect way to start the day” is only true of you enjoy starting the day with sweetened crap in milk, and you’ll be a sitting duck for advertisers who ARE marketing directly to you.
If we lose the precious freedoms laid out in the Bill of Rights, it will surely not be at the hands of a dictator or renegade army, but because of the irresponsible tunnel-vision of deranged do-gooders like Marion Nestle, who, when you get right down to it, believe that only speech they approve of should be truly free.
I’m going to make my son a Pop-Tart now.
Ethics Alarms 
But think of the children! We need to protect our children by finding a way to prevent all these harmful things from reaching them. We should find some room we can put the children in where they will be safe. We need to eliminate all food that isn’t “wholesome”, any radio, TV or internet content that would be found objectionable by some person, any clothing or toys that might cause harm or contain a harmful component, and any friends who might hurt them physically or emotionally at any time.
So what you need to do is lock your children in a sanitized, stainless steel room with filtered air and pass some premeasured amounts of distilled water, protein, fat, carbohydrates, and vitamins each day for them to consume. Ta da! the perfect childhood. No one will ever hurt them, nothing will cause them harm, they won’t need vaccinations because they won’t come into contact with bacteria or viruses, they won’t every become ill. If you don’t do this, you aren’t a good parent and we will take your children away.
Remember, its for their own good.
When I started reading that statement, I thought it was going to end a bit differently. Replace the “market junk foods to kids” with “lie to consumers” and we have a winner. Too bad.
I wouldn’t have objected to that statement. If anything, I think regulators are too lenient with lying advertisers. She want to go far, far beyond that.
Yea… I try to ignore your headlines. I like to go into the posts fresh, instead of with a preconceived: Jack liked/hated X.
That’s a good idea. It’s hard to write non-committal headlines, though…I manage to do it sometimes. Tough with the Dunces, etc.
The phrase “think of the Children” has become the go to defense of people in this country who trying to impose their will on others. Whether it be trying to control what other children eat, read, wear when they ride a bike, or games they play all of them will say ” Think of the children.” My sister Maggie and has two girls who are almost never sick. All their lives she has encouraged them to go outside and play in the yard and fields around her house. She also insisted that they eat what ever she puts on their plate. A friend of hers once asked her ” dint you think it would be better to discuss with them whether they want to eat what you make instead of just imposing your will? ” My sisters response was ” I don’t have discussions with Five and six year olds and imposing my will is my job. I’m their mother.” This same friend also had two girls who were always sick and allergic to everything. She asked my sister Maggie why her kids got sick and Maggies didn’t. Maggie told her ” Because when mine were growing up I wasn’t afraid to let them eat a little dirt every now and then and you wouldn’t even let yours play outside for fear they may get hurt.”
So we can’t protect them from everything , so shove a pop tart and a Mountain Dew in their backpack ,take away their bike helmets and pads and tell to go for a ride.
Giving kids mountain dew is asking for trouble unless you plan to lock them out until the sugar rush ends.
Sugar rush is like the requirement to drink 8 glasses of water a day: imaginary.
Actually, we have fun making fun of commercials that try to convince my 6-yo what to buy. And infomercials. We started it early and she didn’t get it, but she started when she was 4, and we have a ball with the ridiculous ones. And if we buy something that does NOT work like it did on the commercial, it’s discussion time… and it helps her decide on the next purchase with more experience.
Brava!
I am new to this blog and found it interesting. Reading through your posts I saw this one and agreed with it until: “By the way, Professor—no food is marketed “directly” to children, unless an adult allows the child to buy the food directly. This asinine argument about advertising to children has been raging for about 50 years, with speech-hostile advocates always forgetting that 1) parents have both the authority and the control and 2) learning that marketing and advertising are manipulative and deceitful is one of the crucial lessons of childhood.”
I have to disagree. Objects are marketed to children to build in preferences at an early age. Sure, a 4-year-old may not be able to buy an object then, but when they are 8 or 9 or 15, they will remember the messages of the advertisement and that can influence their buying habits. (1) Parents do not always have the authority and control. I recall buying candy cigarettes when I was in 3rd grade. I was, no doubt, influenced by cigarette commercials (and no, I did not have parents or parents’ friends who smoked, at least around me). I am sure that my parents would not have approved of me doing this. When I was in high school and experimenting, I was drawn to camel brand cigarettes because of the marketing of the camel. For some reason, camel smokes were more appealing to me and I specifically recall this. Additionally, I believe there were studies showing the influence of the Joe Camel ad campaign if my personal anecdote was not enough. My parents also would not have approved of this, especially since I was not 18 and buying cigarettes was illegal. Where was the parental control in those situations?
(2) I agree with this point, but it contrasts to your first point. If parents have authority and control of children’s consumption habits, then they never will learn a “crucial lessons of childhood.” Either one or the other, and you seem to play both sides of the fence.
I do agree with your premise, and think that the professor is off-base in this regard, but I do not buy (no pun intended) your argument that no food is marketed to children.
Parents control the message and the purchasing power. Saying that some parents don’t isn’t an argument..if we try to protest children from every area of parental negligence and bad judgment, we might as well just take kids away and have them raised by the government, like in Sparta. Nor is it it inconsistent to say that products are not marketed to children if parents do the buying and supervision, as they should. Will kids see advertising for lousy products anyway? Sure. Will they be disappointed when their parents buy them? Sure. Is there anything wrong with that? No. Do they need to be protected? Hell no. Do they need to develop independent discretion and skepticism about advertising? Of course.