The Jersey Shore's Snooki is in trouble again.
A member of the Parents Television Council advisory board slammed Nicole “Snooki Polizzi,” 21, after she announced Monday on The Jay Leno Show that she'd like to change the world by installing cancer-causing tanning beds "in everybody's homes."
Marybeth Hicks, who also wrote a parenting book called "Bringing Up Geeks," tells Usmagazine.com, "It's disconcerting that [she] could have any sort of influence or be a role model… or advocate something like tanning beds that could cause cancer."
Continues Hicks, "The show is glorifying behaviors and the cultural position that is silly and sometimes dangerous… in the same way that a lot of MTV's programming glorifies the hookup culture, the drinking — the general ignorance that they think is fun and glamorous that people watch like a train wreck! You can't turn away."
Check out 13 pics of stars without makeup
Hicks says Snooki could influence tweens to try to hit tanning beds.
"The notion that these people are celebrities at all give them credibility they should not have," she fumes. "All of the sudden, they do have the power to influence behavior and fads and trends."
Hicks says "parents need to know" that the show is promoting unsafe behavior.
"This [show] is a great example of sheer exploitation for the purpose of chasing ratings," the expert says, adding that the characters have "become so caricatured, they're almost like cartoons."
