We All Know Tanning Isn't Healthy, But ...

Let’s have a show of hands: How many of you have added a little color this spring? It could be anything – a few brushes of bronzer? A quick trip to a tanning studio? An application of sunless tanning lotion, either at home or in carwash style? Or even the “real” way, on a beach somewhere?

OK, I’m putting down my hand so I can keep typing. All winter I resolve to be fine with my natural skin tone, but when it’s time to break out the shorts and sleeveless shirts, I can’t bring myself to keep it.

Not only would my skin be healthier in the long term if I could bring myself to stay out of the sun, I feel a twinge of guilt for contributing – in however small a way, because I never get very tan! – to the societal preference for a “healthy” glow.  When I read articles like the one in last week’s Post-Dispatch about young women who have gotten skin cancer from tanning beds, I feel that twinge a little more strongly.

Like the young woman in the story said, “I wish I wouldn’t have cared so much about being tan.” Amen, sister.

Young women are actually going to tanning salons in higher numbers, despite the fact that we all know we could get melanoma from UV rays, especially at the high concentrations found in some tanning beds (up to 10 or 15 times as strong as the sun).

April and May are a particularly tough season for the “just say no” message, with proms, weddings and swimsuit weather all converging over the next few weeks. Advocacy groups do their best to heighten awareness this time of year, and lawmakers in both Missouri and Illinois are looking at bills that would keep teens out of indoor tanning salons (via parental permission requirements in Missouri and an outright ban in Illinois).

But there’s always the sun … it’d be kind of hard to legislate against that!  Health experts recommend 10- or 15-minute increments of sunshine exposure a couple times a week, which they correctly point out isn’t enough to give anyone a tan. But those rays feel so good on your skin after a cold winter! I admit it, the sun is my downfall too.

If you or your teen is determined not to venture out in your genetically predetermined skin tone (and if your willpower is stronger than mine when it comes to the sun!), there are actually quite a few options.

Sunless tanning products are perfectly safe when they’re used correctly, according to experts like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (where they know a thing or two about pasty skin). The problem is that many of us wind up with a not-so-natural orange hue from those. I have found some brands that are better than others, but the thought of going through the hassle of self-tanning all summer is demoralizing.

There are other options too – pills that medical experts say are not safe, cosmetic bronzers that take some practice to get right, and even, intriguingly, advice from a medical journal that eating the orange and yellow pigments called carotenoids can give us a healthy dose of color from the inside out. I happen to know from experience that very fair-skinned babies who love pureed carrots can turn orange, and apparently it’s scientifically proven that the right amount of carrots, red and yellow peppers and leafy greens will help with that glow.

By Amy De La Hunt, Health Blogger for SmartParenting