Everybody looks better with a tan

Everybody looks better with a tan is what the employee at the local tanning salon told me while signing up for a membership. I believed this statement as well; I thought I really did look better. I was a senior in high school when I started tanning consistently. Everyone else around me was also doing the same, some of the reasons were for school dances or senior pictures, but for most girls, the tanning fad just didn’t end there. Commonly around our campus, student living complexes offer tanning beds in the clubhouses.  Where and when did we make being tan such a beauty standard for women? The indoor tanning industry in the United States brings in about 5 billion dollars a year. So why is it so normalized and important to risk our health for beauty?

Cut to my summer going into my senior year of college, I got a call from my doctor saying I had stage 1 basal cell carcinoma skin cancer on my back. My world momentarily stopped as I took in the fact that I, a 22-year-old senior in college had now had to face the reality of all those waivers I signed up knowing this could happen. I began to reflect on all my choices leading up to this. Why was I so concerned about being tan? Where did I plant the idea in my head I am only pretty when I have a “bronzy glow”?

We constantly see tanning as a glorified regular beauty standard for many. From Instagram models and social media influencers to peers on my campus. Tanning has become one of the staple beauty routines for more than 40 years in America. The indoor tanning industry started to boom in the ’80s and spiked Again in the 2000s. We see the rise of indoor tanning, even with dips in consumerism, there is constant growth in the tanning industry. In Virginia, our governor passed a bill in 2020 that would put a “tan tax” on all products and uses of indoor tanning beds. This bill also included the limitation of anyone under the age of 18 using a tanning bed even with parents’ permission. We can see with the rise of this industry we see a rise in health concerns and knowledge.

The use of indoor tanning beds increases your risk of squamous cell carcinoma by 58% – 67% and a 24% – 29% chance of getting basal cell carcinoma. These odds are unavoidable and a lot larger than you think. If you got into the tanning bed and thought to yourself there is more of a chance, I will have skin cancer than not, I bet a lot of people would rethink. These data and stats were available when I signed up for the membership. The lack of education and awareness is where I went wrong. These are huge numbers of cases with 5.5 million cases of diagnosed skin cancer in the United States a year…. A year!!!

The lack of conversation is what causes people to continue this behavior, being tan doesn’t make you prettier. Being tan doesn’t get you more Instagram likes. And neither does the scar that you have left over from the surgeries it caused. If I could go back and tell my 18-year-old self-anything, it would have been to rethink what beauty means to me. Women have so much more beauty within their selves to be pressured by society to give into this unreal and unnatural beauty standard that risks our health. Starting the conversation with the real facts and risks should come before buying a membership. So, if you think everybody looks better with a tan, just know no one looks good with the scars leftover.

For more info and facts visit:

https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/surprising-facts-about-indoor-tanning#:~:text=Science%20tells%20us%20that%20there’s,basal%20cell%20carcinoma%20by%2024%25.