Tanning is bad for you. Tanning beds are worse. These are almost as sure of statements such as, “Smoking is bad for you.”
With more and more people turning to tanning beds to achieve the perfect sun-kissed skin tone, California Gov. Jerry Brown put a stop to the bronzing madness by outlawing tanning indoors for people ages 14 through 18.
It’s known that excessive exposure to the sun can cause skin cancer, yet almost 30 million people use UV ray tanning beds to bronze in the U.S. every year, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation website.
By making it illegal for people ages 14 through 18, it’s possible young teens could be discouraged from tanning in the future.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has become a tanning-crazed culture. We believe that tan skin is far superior to almost any alternative. In fact, almost 80 percent of people under the age of 25 believe they look better with a tan, according to kidshealth.org.
It’s amazing that people either still reject the notion that tanning can cause skin cancer or they simply don’t care. They could be in the same unfortunate place as people who believed that smoking didn’t cause lung cancer in the not-so-distant future.
Yes, tanning can be useful if there is a big event coming up that you would find infinitely more fun if your skin was just a few shades tanner: prom, a friend’s wedding, or Halloween, for instance.
Unfortunately, tanning for a few events throughout the year soon translates to tanning every week, then every day, then emerging from the tanning bed one day looking like you were dipped in clay.
By all means, hit the tanning bed once in a while.
However, if tanning has become so outrageously underestimated to be a cancer-causing agent that government officials deem it necessary to make it illegal for certain age groups, then there is a problem.
While it will be a huge imposition to many to not be able to access a tanning bed, maybe it will encourage kids to come to terms with their natural skin color.
Cigarettes were made illegal for people less than 18 for a reason. Making indoor tanning illegal can have the same effect: Deter teenagers from harvesting cancer cells for as long as possible.
Hopefully, that is what Brown has set in motion in California.
The Skin Cancer Foundation estimates that 71 percent of tanning salon users are women ages 16-29.
While the same can’t be said for every 16-year-old, it’s pretty safe to assume that they don’t all understand the carcinogenic effects of tanning. Their friends do it, so they do it too.
If Brown’s law can put a stop to this type of thinking, it will have done its job.
No one likes to be told what to do, but even fewer people like having leather for skin and a sizeable dose of skin cancer when they are 30 years old.
Reach the columnist at lweinick@asu.edu
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