• Thu, Feb 2 2012

Tanning Salons Are Lying To Your Teenager

tanning salonsIt would seem that in our modern age, most kids and teens would know that tanning beds are dangerous. I grew up in Los Angeles, a place where there are more tanning salons than Starbucks cafes and McDonald’s restaurants, according to one senator. When I was growing up, which actually wasn’t too long ago, underage girls in my high school flocked to the salons in droves despite the mounting evidence that they caused cancer. I attributed their tan happy behavior to sheer vanity and just a whimsical belief in immortality that is often quite robust in young people.

But after a recent congressional report, it may be that the tanning salons were actually lying to them about the health risks.

CBS News reports that congressional investigators pretended to be fair-skinned teenage girls when contacting 300 tanning salons to ask about health risks. And despite California banning underage tanning because of the huge jumps in melanoma rates, 90% of tanning salons told congressional investigators that there was no risk to their services. And then, a whopping 78% boasted that there were actually health benefits to using a tanning bed such as lupus and arthritis prevention. If that’s enough, 51% flat out denied that tanning beds cause skin cancer at all — a pretty basic fact by this point.

CBS News reports:

Studies show the risk of melanoma goes up 75 percent when tanning bed use begins before the age of 30.

Melanoma is the most common form of cancer among white women between 15 and 29. And the rate of melanoma in that age group has risen 50 percent since the 1980s, as tanning salons have proliferated.

California aside, 31 states have since passed restrictions on underage tanning that requires parents to come along with their kids for these tanning appointments. But even so, the fact that tanning salons are blatantly lying to customers, especially young customers, is a concerning trend if you’re a 16-year-old girl just trying to get the facts straight before homecoming. Tanning salons already target this age bracket with student specials and prom packages, hoping to lure in a steady clientele of young girls.  Now they can add “lying” to their list of tactics as well.

(photo: Shutterstock)

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  • Rachel

    If only tanning salons had to tell the truth, there are beauty related risks beyond skin cancer: all the girls I knew in high school who tanned weekly all look like leather handbags now (all under 30 years of age). Seriously, they all look like they are approaching 40 (and yet they still tan on a regular basis).

    Thanks, all keep my baby-smooth alabaster skin … pass the SPF 75 please!

    The blatant lies tanning salons sell customers is criminal. I have only been in one tanning salon, and that is because there is a delicious smoothy bar in one near my work. One day there was a ridiculous wait for a smoothy, so I was flipping though a “magazine” in the tanning salon waiting room. This magazine mirrored a Teen Vogue, and had a gem of an article about how the “anti-sun” and “anti-beauty” lobby were spreading scary “facts” about tanning to sell more sunscreen.

    I wish I was joking.

  • doubledutchduh

    I will never understand why things like cigarettes and marijuana are constantly singled out with (often overblown) claims of how bad they are for you while so many prescription drugs and tanning beds, etc. slip by unnoticed. Tanning before age 30 and smoking before age 30… which one is worse? Three guesses and the first two don’t count.