Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon has uncovered another questionable six-figure federal government program.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending more than a half a million dollars to create a social media campaign that persuades mothers to tell their daughters not to go to the tanning salon.

The project, “Likes, Pins, and Views: Engaging Moms on Teen Indoor Tanning Thru [sic] Social Media,” will target moms on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram for two school years.

The study will also “analyze” the “political ideology” of mothers to see whether it has an impact on their engagement.

“Secondary aims are to analyze potential moderators (e.g., mother/daughter characteristics; mothers’ political ideology) and mediation of campaign effectiveness by theoretical concepts and campaign engagement,” the grant said.

Klein Buendel, Inc. was awarded $676,417 for the study. The company previously received $791,846 from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to develop a computer game to “limit the aggression” of middle school boys.

“Indoor tanning (IT) increases the risk of melanoma and many states have passed policies to restrict access to IT facilities by minors to reduce the rate of melanoma,” a grant for the project said. “A social media campaign will be delivered to mothers with adolescent daughters designed to convince them not to allow their daughters to indoor tan in a state where IT restrictions have an exception for parental consent.”