Tanning sparks skin scares
Teens lay in these tanning beds everyday and subconsciously ruin their skin.
April 26, 2010 • written by Ashley Fowler
Filed under Features
Nicotine is the ingredient that has smokers all over the world attached to cigarettes. Well, the perfect tan is what has a large number of people addicted to tanning beds, even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a ton of information available about the dangers of both.
On Thursday, March 25, the FDA met in order to discuss and possibly stop the growing rate at which teens and young adults use tanning beds. According to doctors, skin cancer patients are getting younger and younger.
Right now, the FDA hopes to get new taxes and restrictions in place to lower the number of people who practice unhealthy tanning habits.
“Because teens have less spending money than adults, a new 10% tax on indoor tanning was included in the health reform bill signed in March by President Obama,” a spokesman for the Skin Cancer Foundation Bruce Katz said. “This may make some young people think twice about tanning. We’d like to see tanning beds banned completely, but this is a good start.”
Also at the meeting, the FDA advisory panel recommended that making teens have parental consent before tanning or banning teens from using tanning beds altogether should be considered because some parents are unaware of just how much their children are cooking themselves on a daily basis.
“I first started tanning when I was 16 years old with my oldest brother,” senior Brittany Barber said. “He had a poster in his room of Megan Fox and I asked him how she got her skin that color, and the next thing I knew we were pulling up at Tan N’ Go. I was nervous at first, but it was so relaxing. Now I have to tan three times a week.”
Sure, tanning may be relaxing, but is a golden glow really worth the effects that tanning has on the body?
“People do not realize that tanning is one of the most common causes of cancer,” director of dermatology at the California Health and Longevity Institute, Dr. Ronald Moy said. “And really, it’s preventable.”
According to A to Z Health, Beauty, and Fitness, some of the dangers that people face when they use tanning beds are burns, suppression of the immune system, damage to the cornea, cosmetic and drug-induced photo sensitivity, and a higher risk of getting melanoma cancer.
So why do people put themselves at risk everyday by using tanning beds?
Maybe the media is the one to blame.
Whatever the case, tanned and toned bodies are just a false sense of health and beauty, and a golden glow should not be equivalent to someone’s life. Hopefully the FDA will succeed in showing just how dangerous tanning is for everyone, especially teens.
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