Social Media and Health Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Social Media and Health
John Bercow Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alison Thewliss
Thank you, Mr Speaker. My tactic of wearing a dress so big I can hide a colleague behind it is working.
Will the Secretary of State look at the harm that celebrity endorsements on social media can do to young people? The Empowered Woman project in Scotland highlighted how Marnie Simpson of “Geordie Shore” had been plugging Thermosyn diet pills, which are marketed as “skinny caffeine”. When I asked the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about that, he said that the UK Government were looking at
“user-generated content, not necessarily commercial activities”—[Official Report, 8 April 2019; Vol. 658, c. 73.]
Celebrity endorsement veers into the commercial area, however, and has a very significant effect on young people in terms of body image and eating disorders.