Social media memes ‘validate vice’ in children

♦social media memes are encouraging children to be overweight and lazy, academics have warned MPS.

A group of researchers from Loughborough University have found popular images shared on sites such as Instagram and Twitter often carried “anti-health” messages, such as advocating binge eating.

Writing to the parliamentary science and technology select committee, the academics said such images risked “normalising potential damaging behaviour” for a generation already in the grip of an obesity crisis.

Among the memes highlighted were one showing a bloated squirrel with the caption “me thinking about my next meal after I just ate”, which had been “liked” more than 6,000 times.

Another had an image of a morbidly obese child on a mobile phone with a caption saying “free food? Count me in!”

Dr Ashley Casey, a senior lecturer in pedagogy who has worked on the research for the past year, said that popular memes often had a “vice validation” message.

He said: “Basically, it is unacceptable for you and I to have a conversation, saying I just ate a whole chocolate cake.

“But if someone puts a meme up about it then I can say ‘that’s normal and that’s OK, that’s how I feel and that’s almost how I behave’. I think the notion of vice validation is probably a good way of putting it.”