Community Corner
Effects of Tanning Beds Harmful
A Cartersville High School student asks if the look of sun-kissed skin is really worth it.
Gretchen, a junior at , opens the door and smells the scent of cocoa butter, as palm trees and beach themes decorating the walls.
There are racks of tanning products, sun towels and goggles lining the wall behind the counter. She hears the sound to justify the switch that turns on the UVA radiation to heat projecting bulbs that burn the skin: the tanning bed.
The UVA radiation in tanning bed bulbs is up to three times more intense than UVA in natural sunlight, reports Dr. Celeste Robb-Nicholson of Harvard Women’s Health Watch.
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Is it really worth it?
A tanning bed is an apparatus used for tanning, consisting of sunlamp tubes, typically horizontal for lying on, with another above.
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Tanning can be addictive. For some, the UV radiation can have a drug-like effect to where they feel dependent on it.
As we all know, tanning and the sun can cause skin cancer. Some are more dangerous than others. Your risk of Melanoma increases by 75 percent when you use tanning beds before the age of 35.
Melanoma is the most aggressive of the three major categories of skin cancer.
The beds don’t only cause skin cancer; they can cause premature skin aging and eye damage. Premature aging can for leathery, wrinkled skin and dark spots.
Getting eye damage can cause tearing, pain, swollen eyelids, and/or hazy and decreased vision.
Only in some, not many circumstances, is it healthy for you to lie in a tanning bed.
Do you really want to risk your chances of getting skin cancer and other effects of laying in the tanning bed just because you wanted to be tan for high school Prom?
