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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Sorba started tanning after a childhood of watching her relatives revere the artificial rays' relaxation power. "I used to wait in the lobby when I was little and watch them come out of the beds in their bathing suits all happy," she says. "We all love to tan."
Lots of kids follow their parents into the booths -- giving them the impression that what they're doing is safe. A study in the June 2002 issue of Pediatrics found that if a parent or caregiver had tanned under sunlamps in the previous year, 30 percent of their children followed suit despite the risks.
Samantha Droge started tanning at 14 to cover a large scar on her back from when her cat scratched her as a young child. "I go in just about every day to maintain the color. I like having a badass tan," she says. "You can't see my bruises, freckles and scars."
Droge, 20, who works at E-Z Tan & Fashions in North Palm Beach, Fla., says she favors the convenience of artificial tanning. "I can get the maximum color in the minimum time, and I don't have to be in the sun, all hot," she says. "I don't have the time to sit outside all day." Rather than sweat for hours to maintain their tans, kids spend an average of 10 to 30 minutes in the beds. The problem is that tanning beds use more UVA rays, which penetrate deep into the skin, than UVB rays, which burn more rapidly. The threats of skin cancer and wrinkles never cross Droge's mind, she says. "I'll just get Botox, I guess."
The statistics don't faze Selicione either, even though some of her relatives have died from different types of cancer. "Anything I do is dangerous," she says. "I can drive my car and maybe die in an accident." Her younger sister Jaime, 16, says she's cut down on tanning after reading reports on the risks of sunbathing. "Now I just go every few weeks to maintain my tan, but I know my limits," Jaime says. "I'd go to the beach and sit out all day long, then go to the tanning salon afterward to even my tan, so I'd be, like, so burned."
Lauren Selicione says she won't stop hitting the beds -- a tan is too important to her self-image. "I'm 5 foot 6 and have an athletic body, but my tummy is embarrassing," she says. "My tan makes me look a lot slimmer." She says the tanned and toned bodies of celebrities, such as Christina Aguilera, account for much of indoor tanning's popularity. "The media wants us to look a certain way: skinny, blond and tan."
The radiant, bronzed-babe look of Hollywood is especially in right now (see J.Lo, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton). "A lot of the celebrities who teenagers identify as sexy are celebrities who tend to be very tan. It's a big look in Hollywood," says Teen Vogue magazine beauty and health editor Kara Jesella, who often warns her readers of tanning's risks. "It definitely has an effect on teens who see their pictures in magazines and on TV and want to look like that."
The industry's aggressive advertising has also seduced teens. "In the last 10 years, salons have marketed heavily to high schoolers, advertising on billboards near high schools about tanning before vacations and prom," says Robert Dellavalle, director of the dermatoepidemiology unit at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. A 2002 study in San Diego found that most salons offer unlimited tanning packages, which allow patrons to pay a fee to come in as often as they like. Dermatologists say these packages are often snapped up by teenagers obsessed with maintaining a dark tan.
