There is controversy regarding what the optimal roles for government intervention on food advertising should be of sugar-based processed foods to children and whether or not this correlates to an increased obesity rate. Food regulation proponents call for tighter advertising guidelines from regulatory agencies, whereas opponents retort that government intervention on food advertisement is paternalistic and their advertisements should be protected by the principles of free speech. This research finds that the regulatory agencies fail to effectively implement food advertising regulations amid considerable controversy: (i) there are overlapping or conflicting interests in their sphere of jurisdiction to regulate food advertising: it led to shirking among regulation agencies in terms of shifting the responsibility rather than cooperative regulation implementation (ii) there is policy discontinuity between delegation by Congress and regulation implementation by the agency, and (iii) political winds or pressures from the policy broker such as Congress and Presidents’ ideology may shift: which may cultivate a reluctance to implement actively. As a conclusion, this paper emphasizes the “libertarian paternalism,” or “nudge” for an appropriate regulation design and the scope of government intervention.

□ Key Words: food regulation, advertisement, agency, advocacy coalition