With summer right around the corner countless teens and adults alike will be flocking to the tanning salon to get the highly sought after tan.
We have all heard the risks, but similar to smoking cigarettes, most people never take them seriously.
These warnings of melanoma, photo damage, brown spots or wrinkles later in life usually fall upon deaf ears.
If you won’t believe the major risks associated with tanning beds, then maybe debunking the myths that tanning salons sell you on can change your mind.
Tanning salons will commonly tell you that it is safer to tan indoors on a bed than outdoors.
They sell you on the idea that a tanning bed s safer because you can control and monitor the exact amount of exposure compared to tanning outdoors where the UV percentages change constantly.
These claims that they make are false, and, in fact, the opposite is actually true.
According to Dr. David E. Bank, a dermatologist and spokesperson for The Skin Cancer Foundation, tanning indoors is more dangerous to your skin because “you’re getting a much higher concentration of the longer wavelength UVA, which damages more deeply into the skin.”
Research done by the Skin Cancer
Foundation shows that tanners using these tanning beds can receive up to 12 times the annual UVA dose and are 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who have never tanned indoors.
Another selling point and myth used by tanning salons is the idea that if you are tan then you won’t burn.
Therefore, they tell people it is better to tan indoors before heading outdoors.
In reality, only sun screen or having a naturally darker complexion will prevent you from burning.
According to Dr. Bank, “someone that has naturally light skin can still burn no matter how many times they have laid in a tanning bed.”
Most tanning salon employees work off of commission.
This means they will try to sell you the most expensive tan, which usually means the highest UV intensity bed.
Some salons won’t even let you tan there unless you buy a package that only means more harmful tanning for you and more money for them.
And if you are looking for the much safer spray tan, most likely you will be encouraged to get a base tan from a tanning bed first because, according to the salons, “it looks more natural.”
Another question you may want to ask yourself the next time you are in a tanning bed is, what am I laying in?
Tanning beds can often be a cesspool of bacterias and viruses.
Sweat and urine are the two most common things found on tanning beds, and as a consumer you rely on the employee of the tanning salon to effectively clean this off.
If they end up using the same rag to clean that bed off every time, you could be laying in the sweat of hundreds of people.
The ultra violet radiation emitted from a tanning bed is a proven carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent.
Ultra violet damage stimulates your melanocytes, or pigment-producing cells, to start making more melanin to protect itself.
This is what gives us the appearance of a tan but also tells us that there was some sort of damage done to the skin.
Most people don’t take the risks of tanning seriously.
Even though The International Agency for Research on Cancer includes UV radiation from tanning beds as one of the most dangerous cancer-causing substances, the FDA classifies them under the lowest of the three regulatory classes for medical devices.
This means that your tanning bed is given the same regulation as elastic bandages.
With little to no regulation by the FDA and the high risk of skin cancer, please tan at your own risk this summer.
Zachary Heppner
Viewpoints Correspondent