Indoor tanning is a $5-billion-dollar industry, with more tanning salons in an average city than Starbucks or McDonald’s. Especially popular with teenage girls and young women, a national Youth Risk Behavior Survey revealed that over 25 percent of high school girls used an indoor tanning device. As a healthcare professional, you need to be pro-active in advising your patients about the risks posed by these tanning salons.
While the FDA offers some safety guidelines for indoor tanning, unless state governments pass their own regulations, many FDA guidelines are simply ignored. In fact, states like Missouri place no age or safety restrictions on indoor tanning.
"Teenagers in general, particularly the younger ones, may not understand the risk," said Dr. Sophie J. Balk, an attending pediatrician at New York’s Children's Hospital at Montefiore. "It's not just, ‘I'm going to look good for the prom.' It's something that's a very common practice among lots of kids, particularly Caucasian girls,” added Balk.
A recent study led by Dr. Brundha Balaraman at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis revealed the level of misinformation many tanning salons provide and the insidious dangers they pose to teens and young adults. "It is a cumulative effect," said Dr. Balaraman. "The younger you start, the more damage you accrue."
Dr. Balaraman and her team called hundreds of indoor tanning facilities in Missouri to inquire about teen tanning. Nearly two-thirds of operators would allow children as young as 10 to tan, and in some cases, without parental consent. Close to half indicated that indoor tanning posed no risks and 80 percent claimed that tanning could prevent subsequent sunburns. A number of tanning facilities were inconsistent from one call to the next. "We kind of had the sense that this was happening," exclaimed Dr. Balaraman. "It was scary, because 43 percent said there was zero risk with tanning, which is just blatantly untrue." According to the National Cancer Institute, tanning increases a person's chance of developing melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer that will kill 9,480 people in 2013.
While tanning bed manufacturers must warn against the dangers of burning, skin cancer and eye damage from UV exposure, tanning beds currently share the same classification as Band-Aids and tongue depressors. More FDA regulations are needed for underage tanning, say researchers, since state laws are slow to pass and often ineffective. "I think a federal law would be most helpful, because it would just make the process a lot more efficient," said Balaraman.
Study co-author Dr. Sophie J. Balk explained that many countries—including Australia, the UK and Portugal—have banned young people from using indoor tanning salons. "Governments around the world have taken action on behalf of our young people," said Balk. "I think that our federal government should do the same."
As a healthcare professional, nurse or pediatrician, it’s important to be pro-active and warn pre-teen and teen patients about the real risks posed by tanning salons.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
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