It’s that time of year again, when you start to see women and girls with a deep, dark island tan. Even though it’s only just barely spring. Today I saw a billboard for a local tanning salon chain. Some advertising/ marketing/ PR spin master with absolutely no morals or ethics has come up with the brilliant idea of promoting tanning beds as a Fun! and Exciting Way! to GET YOUR VITAMIN D. I threw up a little bit in the back of my mouth when I saw that.
It’s a well-known fact that your body does generate Vitamin D with exposure to sunlight. Whether or not artificial ultraviolet rays also accomplish this is beyond me and beside the point, the point being: TANNING BEDS ARE DANGEROUS AND THE TAN IS UGLY ANYWAY. (See also: photo of La Lohan above.)
Lest you think I am one of those overly cautious Chicken Littles that goes out with SPF 50 and a big hat, let me assure you that I am not. Against the advice of all the most knowledgeable experts, I love the sun. As a teen living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I was a world-class tanner and sunscreen was absolutely for amateurs. I’ve never worried a whole lot about what tanning would do to my skin because my mother has also been a sun-worshipper her whole life and if you think I look young for 41, you should see her. She’s 66 and doesn’t look a day over 55. So I figure good genes count for…oh, pretty much everything. Although I have wizened somewhat with age and do use a low-digit sunscreen now.
So understand that my opinion of tanning beds is coming from a self-proclaimed life-long tanner. After the jump: My tanning bed experience.
Several years ago I started going to tanning beds for a “starter tan.” You know – because it’s SO EMBARRASSING to go down to Destin and show up looking like a big white whale. Let’s face it, even fat looks better tanned. So you want to get a little head start before you go. And that was okay. If you consider sliding down a slippery slope into the swirling eddy of skin cancer “okay.”
Because soon I was going back after I’d been to the beach. You know, to help the tan last through the summer. And then one year we didn’t go to the beach until very late in the summer and who wants to go all summer being pale? So I spent several months further developing my relationship with the tanning salon and it’s just so easy and they make it so accessible and affordable that how can you NOT? The result of which is that you don’t even notice that your skin is turning a very unnatural orange color and that your face now in fact looks like a PURSE.
The thing that got my attention was that I started having weird reactions to the sun when I was AT THE BEACH. Like, the actual SUN. About the third day there, I broke out in a horrible rash all over my arms - around my wrists, inside my elbows, covering the upper arms and around the shoulders. Like tiny little blisters that itched and burned and looked like I had the freaking plague. And it was really kind of frightening. Doctors said it looked like an allergic reaction and I tried changing my brands of sunscreen and lotion and every other normal step you can go through. But the truth is this, and it can not be ignored: I never had trouble with my skin before I subjected it to the torture of the tanning beds.
According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, nearly 2.3 million American teenagers visit tanning salons. A recent study shows that across all age groups, males and females who have ever used a tanning bed have a 15 percent higher risk for developing melanoma (the most deadly form of skin cancer). And people who first used a tanning bed before the age of 35 INCREASE THEIR RISK OF THIS DEADLY SKIN CANCER BY 75 PERCENT.
Need Vitamin D? Drink some milk. I hear it does a body good.
Responses to “Tanorexia”
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 am
I agree with you totally about the tanning beds. I’ve never been in one in my life, but my sisters used to go. I would tell them that they were just paying someone to give them skin cancer. My mother used to lay out in our backyard and get very tan, but I thought it was boring to do that. I get my sun just by walking at lunch. I read that everyone should get 30 minutes of sunlight a day without sunscreen in order for the body to properly use vitamin D. However, the story said that most people get that just driving to work in their cars. This year, when it was time to put up the black tights, I bought some Jergen’s Body Glow lotion to “tan” my legs for skirts. It seems to be doing a good job so far!
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
That Hollywood tan is a spray-on/Mystic Tan.
FYI, we women are most likely to develop skin cancer on the backs of our calves.
My ex did an oncology fellowship at the Natl. Cancer Institute & said that the scariest cancer he ever saw was skin cancer. Kills much faster than most cancers. One month, sometimes, from diagnosis to death.
I’m so pale that I get checked once a year at the dermatologist–to prevent having an orange-sized chunk taken out. Even had my birthmark carved off because those cells are higher risk.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:16 am
Old ladies keep coming up and touching my face, saying I have the most beautiful skin. My secret? When everyone else in the 8th grade was busy dousing themselves in baby oil and laying on sheets of tin foil, I was riding horses – the hat brim kept the sun off my face – and later in high school when my peers were patronizing tanning salons I was spending my money on books.
My arms, which have gotten their fair share of sun over the decades, are so much worse looking than the rest of my body that it’s not even funny. The skin is rougher and has a totally different texture.
They aren’t kidding about the skin cancer either. Friend of mine who loves tanning beds just had a patch the size of the palm of your hand removed from her back.
I’m just glad that stars today are often pale, and have taken the stigma out of not having a tan. I used to get teased in high school for having pale legs and it was awful. Girls shouldn’t have to be teased for not killing themselves.