Health & Fitness
Your Tan Will Fade, but The Damage It has Done to Your Skin Won't
No one can deny the fact that, everyone looks better with a tan but isn't living longer and preserving your skin for the long haul more important?
Although there has been a large movement to try to get younger generations to understand the dangers of skin cancer, the media constantly portrays tan skin as sexy, beautiful, and attractive. Tanning booth companies saw they could make money from this concept, and now promote the idea that to be beautiful, you must be tan. Reality shows like Jersey Shore tag along, emphasizing the importance of obtaining by making it a part of daily routine “GTL, Gym, Tanning Laundry.” Society now perceives a “tan” as an indication of health and beauty but it is anything but that. "Tanned skin is damaged skin," according to the CDC. "Any change in the color of your skin after time outside -- whether sunburn or suntan -- indicates damage from UV rays. Using a tanning bed causes damage to your skin, just like the sun." The deeper the color, the worse the damage.
Ultraviolet ray exposure causes more than 90% of all Skin cancer, the most common form of cancer in the country. One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence more than doubles a person's chances of developing melanoma later in life. A person's risk for melanoma also doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns at any age. In 2012, the American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates that there will be 76,250 new cases of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, in the United States and 9,180 deaths from the disease. With millions of teenagers visiting tanning salons a year, Indoor tanning has become a popular method among young women to obtain the desired skin tone, despite continuing warnings about the effects of UV damage. A study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer found that your chance of getting skin cancer increases by 75% if you use tanning beds before the age of 30.
Simply put: tanning, indoor or outdoor, is dangerous. No one can deny the fact that, everyone looks better with a tan but isn't living longer and preserving your skin for the long haul more important? Simply put: tanning, indoor or outdoor, is dangerous. Although being tan may lead you to believe you are beautiful now, having skin cancer later will not be as beautiful. In the long run UV exposure will only cause wrinkles, freckles, premature aging, sun spots, forcing your natural beauty to fade quicker, not to mention the constant regret for not treating your skin right. Protect your skin from the sun today and it will pay off with healthier, younger looking skin in the future.
