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This article explores how the First Amendment bears upon a school district policy restricting junk food and soda marketing in public schools. The article highlights a clash between two fundamental American beliefs: that a public school should be a sheltered training ground for democratic citizenship and that the strength of the free market economy is dependent upon corporate access to consumers including children. The article begins by describing the "commercial speech doctrine," which explains why the First Amendment might be implicated in a school district advertising policy. The article then touches on actions a school district might take without involving the First Amendment. Next, the article distinguishes between two First Amendment standards of review that a court could apply to a school district advertising policy and argues that a "forum analysis" is the appropriate approach. The article identifies three types of advertising policies that should survive a forum analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Budgets for marketing to children have spiked well into the billions, an escalation that mirrors the rise in childhood obesity rates. Children are targets for a maelstrom of marketing for all sorts of products enabled by sophisticated technology and minimal government regulation. Despite the fact that recent studies document links between food advertising and childhood obesity, a significant proportion of marketing that targets children is for energy-dense, low-nutrient food. Moreover, advances in digital technology allow marketers to find more direct, personalized gateways to reach young audiences that sidestep parental authority and bank as much on the unknowing parent as the gullible child. Cataloguing the depth and breadth of child-centered food marketing while discussing grassroots strategies for instituting change, the authors argue that parents can no longer keep pace either with innovations in advertising or increased spending, suggesting the need for more stringent government regulations on food marketing to children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]