Some of us spend the entirety of the summer on the beach in a bikini, soaking up the sun's rays and drinking pina coladas. And then there's others who have to lather up in sunscreen every time they go outdoors and look for the shady spots on the lawn to pop a squat on. As someone who is paler than pale, I have been trained to be afraid of the sun. When given the option I choose shade, at the beach I need to be under an umbrella, and sunscreen is my summer fling. Even still, I have many friends who bake in the summer and become so tan that I'm convinced they've changed races on me.
It's not secret that tan is what is considered attractive nowadays. We have created the man-made tan in the forms of a UV box and tinted chemicals. Every celebrity plastered on a magazine cover glows a nice golden brown. And of course there's the week-before-prom fake-tan frenzy.
But let's face it: tanning to the extreme is unhealthy. Skin cancer, skin damage, and major wrinkles are all side-effects. And because of the tanning trend, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), 58,094 people in the US were diagnosed with melanomas of the skin in 2007. 8,461 of these people died. I know that even though I'm not into the tanning thing, I'm at risk for skin cancer. And I think it's pretty frightening that in my high school days, the girls who were known for spending hours in tanning booths claimed to 'not care' about the risk of skin cancer.
It's okay to tan. It happens naturally and it happens to a lot of us and yeah, quite frankly it does look nice. But let's remember the facts and keep them in mind while sipping pina coladas on the beach this summer. Get a little brown and then consider picking up the sunscreen for awhile. It will do you some good and save you some wrinkles in the future.
And don't we all want that?
--Rachael
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