Susan Linn

"Issues on all sides of the political spectrum, from preserving the First Amendment to promoting the free market, make it difficult for Americans to face squarely the harmful effects that media advertising has on children," argued Susan Linn, Assistant Director of the Media Center for Children, in a 2000 Boston Globe op-ed.

Linn writes off the First Amendment as a matter of "ideological differences" and advocates sacrificing it for the children. Linn insisted in a 2004 interview: "I believe strongly in freedom of expression and that people have the right to create any kind of art or media programming they choose.

However, I believe — at least when it comes to children — that commercial speech should not be protected under the First Amendment." Linn does little to hide her anti-capitalist feelings either, saying at the 2003 Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) conference on "Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic": "Rampant commercialism, in and of itself, is unhealthful, and the food industry contributed to that."

In addition to her work as a clinical psychologist at Harvard, Linn also founded a grassroots coalition called Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children, and authored the book Consuming Kids: the Hostile Takeover of Childhood. She has advocated an outright ban on any marketing to children.

It is no wonder Linn was a speaker at the 2003 and 2004 PHAI conferences. Linn singles out specific foods as the primary culprit of childhood obesity. And she’s not pulling any punches when it comes to laying blame: "As Congress holds hearing on the escalating problem of childhood obesity," she wrote in a 2002 Christian Science Monitor op-ed, "it should make the food industry’s culpability a central part of their investigation."