Shall Tanning Be the New Smoking?

Last week I had lunch with an old (but non-elderly) friend of mine--I will refer to her here as Mona, though that is not her real name--who is a student at Georgetown University's School of Nursing. As we were preparing to leave the restaurant, Mona asked me if I would keep her company while she stopped by a tanning salon to make an appointment. I agreed. When we arrived, another acquaintance of mine, a young woman who is also a student at Georgetown, was already there for an appointment of her own. I have since been assured by one of my housemates--who has herself spent many an hour in a tanning bed--that this establishment's clientele includes many female students from both Georgetown University and nearby George Washington University.

I had never been to any such place of business before, and, as I waited for Mona to conclude her business there, I began thinking along the following lines: I am myself by nature exceedingly fair-skinned, and long hours spent in the sun do little to improve my appearance: My skin grows red, and becomes painful to the touch, and in extreme cases has even developed blisters; and blisters, technically speaking, are indicative of a second-degree burn. Ever since I was an adolescent, therefore, I have practiced the fine art of sun-avoidance: I wear sunglasses all the year round; I walk, whenever possible, on the shady side of the street; and my sunblock is never less powerful than SPF 30. The sun and I are old, implacable enemies, and as summer nears we look to one another with gathering hostility and suspicion. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that I have never been an unabashed supporter of suntanning, artificial or otherwise. But my own prejudices (however legitimate) aside, it seems to me a question worth pondering whether Americans' long-standing love affair with bronzed skin will not eventually come into conflict with their ever-increasing concern over issues of personal health.

We remember that once, a generation or two ago, smoking was tolerated by Americans far more than it is today: Cigarettes had not yet been banned from most workplaces, the citywide prohibitions that we see today were hardly dreamt of, and smokers were subject to virtually none of public and private attacks on their tobacco-use that bombard them today. The times are very different now, of course. It may seem unlikely that any such change of fortune could one day overtake sunworshippers and the industry that supports their habit. What, one may ask, has sunlight to do with tobacco? UV rays are not physically addictive (so far as we know), and no one has ever contracted cancer through second-hand tanning. Yet consider these three parallels:

1. Whether it be real or simulated in a tanning parlor, sunlight, like tobacco, is a proven carcinogen. With sunbathing, as with smoking, the greatest and most recognized danger is cancer. Prolonged exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays may lead to melanoma or other kinds of cancerous lesions, and hours spent in a tanning salon are at least equally hazardous. Polls reveal that cancer remains highly unpopular among Americans; to the extent that tanning is linked to it, therefore, its own popularity may eventually decline.

2. Like smoking, tanning is a practice that makes us more attractive in the short term, at the cost of making us less attractive in the long term. It is the consensus of the medical community in this country that smoking can cause premature aging of the epidermis: leathery skin and deep wrinkles may emerge in our early thirties, which owe their origin to the tobacco we consumed in our teens and twenties. Tanning is acknowledged to have a similar effect: Photoaging, or aging of the skin from exposure to ultraviolet rays, may eventually give us the complexion of an old cowhide jacket. Tanning is also associated with the formation of fine red veins on the cheeks, nose, and ears. As a friend of mine's grandmother used to say, "Tan now is wrinkles later."

3. Like their counterparts within Big Tobacco, authorities in the tanning industry have refused to concede--strong warnings from the medical community notwithstanding--that what they are selling is hazardous to Americans' health. Tanning is big business and is rapidly getting bigger: The indoor tanning industry brought in $4.2 billion in 2000 and is projected to take in about $7.5 billion in 2008. The stakes are large, therefore, and Big Tanning is determined to protect them. The National Institutes of Health has called for better public education regarding the hazards of tanning parlors, and is on record as supporting stricter regulation of these facilities. The Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that "no facility may state in any advertising, written or verbal, that tanning has any health benefit or that tanning device is free of hazards from ultraviolet radiation." Yet not only do the owners and operators of these facilities fail to adequately warn their patrons about the risks of tanning, they also make claims about the benefits of tanning that recall some of the most ludicrous statements about the benefits of smoking that were abroad in the 1950s. Among the problems for which tanning may be efficacious, according to various members of the industry, are the following: Psoriasis, acne, obesity, seasonal affective disorder, stress, hypertension, tachycardia, and high cholesterol. Tanning has also been credited with increasing both muscular strength and resistance to infection. Truly, it is a panacea for our age.

Given these similarities, it is not inconceivable to me that one day the self-appointed watchdogs of Americans' health, the same men and women who are now ranged against smokers, may refocus their efforts against those who would rather bake their own skins than blacken their own lungs. I have never been a smoker, but I have always been prepared to stand with my many friends who do choose to smoke as they have borne the persecutions heaped upon them by the prudent and the self-righteous; and if and when my friends who are wont to go a-tanning someday suffer similar threats and indignities, they may rest assured that my own regard for them shall never be undone by the imprecations of fanatics. Adieu.