Tanning can build Confidence, Be Health Hazard...

 03/28/08

Lauren Wood began tanning her freshman year of high school. Going to a school dance with older girls, she took notice of their tanned skin compared to her pale skin.

Now a sophomore at Baker University, Wood continues to use a tanning bed during the winter and direct sunlight in the summer.

"You just feel really good about yourself," she said describing her reason for tanning. "If you're pale, you notice it a lot more. If I had never started tanning, I wouldn't notice that difference."

Senior Emily Nickel also began tanning in high school.

"It was kind of the thing to do," she said. "I was a cheerleader, and the cheerleaders always went tanning after practice."

Like Wood, Nickel tans during the winter and takes advantage of the sun in the summer.

"I have blonde hair, so I look really washed out if I'm pale," she said. "It's kind of taboo to be pale in the society we live in today. Tanning makes me feel better about how I look."

While tanning can play a role in boosting self-esteem for some people, it also has potential negative effects. Overexposure to ultraviolet rays can lead to skin cancer, specifically malignant melanoma, later in life.

Dr. Amy Rabe, an oncologist at the Kansas City Cancer Center, has dealt with patients battling cancer. She said most tanning beds use UVA rays as opposed to UVB rays. She described UVA rays as having longer wavelengths that penetrate the skin to cause a tan.
UVB rays, which are considered the worse of the two, have shorter wavelengths and are responsible for burning the skin.

"Maybe they're not as bad, but they're still bad," she said. "A light cigarette is still a cigarette."

Given the possible effects, Nickel isn't persuaded to stop tanning. She said she pays $250 per semester for a package, which includes tanning and access to the fitness center, at the Baldwin Athletic Club.

"I'm very aware that I'm causing damage to my skin," she said. "I think most people have the knowledge that it can be bad, but they brush it aside and have the mentality that
'It's not going to happen to me.'"

 Wood said she's also aware of the negative effects tanning may have.

"My friends tell me that I tan too much for my own good," she said. "I think as I grow up, I'll stop doing it."

Joanna Vesecky, owner of Joanna's, a tanning salon in Baldwin City, said she's dealt with people who don't understand the effects of UV overexposure.

"If you're not a wise person and you over tan, there are definitely negative effects," she said. "There are some people that we call 'salon hoppers.' They go from Salon A in the morning to Salon B in the afternoon. In some aspects, some people don't know how to tan smart. They're living for today and never thinking tomorrow is going to come. We can tell whether you've tanned that day - your skin has a glow to it. We cut those people off. That's our responsibility."

Vesecky said tanners go through a process before being allowed to tan. Each person has to fill out a consent form stating he or she is 18 years old. Underage tanners must have parental consent the first time they tan.

Next, tanners fill out a skin analysis, which determines the length of time the person will tan and the likelihood of burning.

"People with blonde hair and blue eyes have less color pigment in their skin than someone with brown hair and brown eyes," she said. "Those people are more likely to burn easily, as are people with German and Irish heritage and red-headed people. We have to be a little more cautious with them."

Although the possible negative effects of tanning seem obvious, George McCrary, owner of the BAC, said tanning has an undeserved reputation and few people are knowledgeable about positive aspects of tanning. He said tanning could be a good supplement for vitamin D.

"My 12-year-old daughter has tanned before," he said. "It helps with her calcium and vitamin absorption, as well as her mood. There's definitely risks if you overexpose yourself, but it's nothing compared to the real sun."

Rabe argues that the possible negative effects of tanning outweigh the possible benefits.

"There are far safer ways of getting vitamin D," she said. "For example, milk additives - lots of milk has vitamin D added. To me, that's like saying cigarette smoking has benefits in stress reduction - there are better ways of getting that."

Vesecky said some of her clients have said they turn to tanning to help with their psoriasis, fibromyalgia and arthritis.

"I don't argue that there may be some benefits to UV exposure for certain people," Rabe said. "However, the case needs to be made that the tanning salons are mostly targeting and used by healthy adults, and that tanning salons are not a medical facility licensed to provide therapeutic UV light treatments."

Dr. Matthew Buxton, a dermatologist at Free State Dermatology in Lawrence, said clients like the ones Vesecky describe are making a trade-off - they're potentially exposing themselves to skin cancer to help with their skin conditions.

"For some people, that's a trade-off worth making," he said.

Buxton said he's seen differences in skin between those who tan and those who don't. He said he's seen 50-year-old twins, who looked at least 10 years apart because one tanned regularly while the other one didn't.

"In the 1930s people stayed covered up a lot more. Women wore bonnets and long sleeves," he said. "Beginning in the late '30s and '40s, movies started coming out that made it look like you needed to be tan to be glamorous. Now people come to me and they want to
reverse the damage, but it just doesn't work like that."

Buxton said the age of his patients varies but has seen an increase in younger ones.

"I have patients in their 20s who show signs of skin cancer," he said. "The difference between tanning in a bed and tanning outside is that people usually tan nude in beds. This has created more cancer cases in areas like the breasts, groin, and buttocks."

Tanning beds and direct sunlight aren't the only ways to gain a tan. Some salons offer a mystic tan, which applies a self-tanning solution that contains aloe vera moisturizers with bronzers. More common sunless-tanners include lotions that can tint or stain skin.

"I think the lotions make you look more orange," Wood said. "When they start to wear off your skin looks really scaly. Overall, I would say it's more uneven and orange-tinted."

McCrary said he hasn't seen a decrease in tanning bed use despite the increase in sunless-tanning products.

"I think there are more people who like to fall asleep and take a 20-minute power nap," he said referring to time spent in a tanning bed.

For Rabe, the increase in sunless-tanning products is a sign that people will eventually turn away from tanning.

"I definitely think there are better alternatives," she said. "Some fake tans are getting good enough nowadays, and people are becoming more knowledgeable, that I think tanning salons will disappear someday."