Many girls spend large quantities of money on going to tanning beds. I am sure we have all witnessed the girl who looks a little too orange at a formal in the middle of the winter. Although many girls say they feel better in their skin when it is not pale, they may not be considering the full detrimental effects of how dangerous tannings beds can be.
Tanning beds emit ultraviolet rays called UVA and UVB which effect the skin both on the surface and the deeper tissue as well. When the skin becomes exposed to the two types of rays, the body produces melanin which is a brown pigment that darkens the skin. This is our bodies way of trying to protect ourselves and our skin from the damaging rays. According to the World Health Organization, “Excessive exposure can lead to problems such as eye and skin cancer.”
One of the main reasons tanning beds increase skin cancer risks is because when the body is exposed to UV rays it produces enzymes in attempt to protect itself. However, these enzymes do not always repair the skin damage. Often times the enzymes mutate and turn cancerous. As a society, we must sit back and ourselves if the price of “beauty” is really worth years off your own life.
One of the challenges with the tanning industry is often times tanning salons will advertise that their salon is safe and they know how to control the UV rays so the process does not have a good chance of harming you. The DR. OZ show did a study about this topic and reported back that salons say this simply as a marketing technique to draw in customers. It is proven that these UV rays increase your chances of cancer and skin impairments, so even if a salon can control it slightly, it is not worth any of the risk.
In conclusion, what does this all mean? When really thinking about this topic, it says a lot about our society. The fact that millions of people are willing to risk their own personal health to look tan on command is a sad realization. We live in a world where the media puts way too much emphasis on appearance and helps send some people to pretty desperate measures. Some people may say, “I only go to a tanning bed two or three times per year.” While that is better than others, that could be two or three times too many for the safety of your health.
Work Cited:
http://www.doctoroz.com/blog/susan-evans-md/dangers-tanning-beds
http://www.livestrong.com/article/105867-negative-effects-tanning-beds/
I always find it crazy that people go to such extremes to maintain a tan complexion. Another harmful skin practice I have just recently discovered is skin whitening, which occurs more commonly in Asia. Lightening products often come in the form of a cream, many of which contain dangerously-high mercury levels. Many of those used in foreign countries are illegal in the US. http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm294849.htm This site gives a little description of a few of the mercury-related skin products. I think its much healthier to simply embrace our natural skin tones.