Darker Side of Tanning

Here's the myth: it is overexposure, or sunburn, that might be the cause for any of the negative things you read about sunlight and health. Overexposure and sunburn are not synonymous! In reality, tanning is an art that converts animal skins into leather. Exposure to UV light turns on the melanocyte color producing cells as a response to injury to the epidermis. This is the opposite of vitiligo, the skin disease Michael Jackson suffers from, in which those same cells lose the ability to produce pigment of any kind.

Historically, a tanned body belonged to the working classes who labored out-of-doors, while fashionable pale skin belonged exclusively to the upper classes and aristocracy. For many centuries and well into the nineteenth, a whitening agent for the face was used, composed of carbonate, hydroxide, and lead oxide. Arsenic was commonly employed starting in the mid-tenth century. It brings a whole new meaning to the idiom "suffering for beauty."

Who single-handedly changed this? Designer Coco Chanel inadvertently gave the Paris fashion world the tan after cruising from Paris to Cannes on the second Duke of Westminster's yacht early in the 20s. (She liked his clothes.) The suntan had arrived as the symbol of wealth and leisure. A tan in the winter meant the bearer had enough money and status to vacation in an exotic, warm climate.

The search for the perfect tan has led to basking in the sun, wipe-ons pioneered by Coppertone, tanning beds, and now spray-on airbrushed tans. The first greased Little Miss Coppertone was not Jodie Foster, but rather a 3-year-old girl in pigtails named Cheri Brand, daughter of the Bronxville illustrator who sketched the original 1959 ad campaign: Don't be a Paleface!

And Hollywood jumped in, too, glamorizing a tan with technicolor film in the late 30s. The perennial tanning idol of the screen was immortalized by Doonesbury's Zonker and his entry into the George Hamilton Cocoa Butter Open. The current rage for Paris Hilton-types is the sunless tan, again pioneered by our orange friends at Coppertone. DHA (dihydroxyacetone) is a chemical refined from sugar cane which temporarily colors the skin by reacting with the keratin protein found in the top layer. DHA is considered completely safe, but it gives no protection from sun damage: it doesn't stop UV light.

Speaking of ultraviolet light– both UVA and UVB rays are harmful to the skin. Tanning beds employ UVA radiation, which actually penetrates deeper into the skin than UVB. The research unequivocally points to UV exposure as the source of common skin cancers. The rate is rising by leaps and bounds. At highest risk are those with light eyes/skin/hair or a family history of skin cancer, but anyone can move into the high risk category just by tanning. Basal cell (affecting deepest layer of the epidermis) and squamous cell (middle layer of epidermis) carcinomas are the most common of all cancers. Malignant melanoma, though less common, is the most dangerous, the leading cause of skin disease death. If you get one, you will get more.

In the end, tanning early on makes for a hagged-out look later in life: sagging skin, deep wrinkles, uneven tone, broken blood vessels, and age spots (macules and solar lentigines). Take a good look at the hands, decollete, and neck of any tanned woman over 40. It isn't pretty up close. Plastic surgeons delicately refer to it as "photoaging."

Lest you think baking in the sun is done and over, just think of how many Hollywood stars are photographed on the beach in bikinis. Do you think they've got on their SPF 40?

Tanning the old-fashioned way invites paparazzi. It's easy to find popular stars on the internet wearing not much more than their sunglasses: Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Hurley, Natalie Portman, Janet Jackson, etc. (But you never did really think of them as role models, now did you?)

Children and adolescents are thought to be the most vulnerable because their skin cells are dividing and changing more rapidly than those of an adult. One blistering sunburn in childhood more than doubles a person's lifetime chances of developing a melanoma. And, as the ozone layer thins, exposure to natural UV radiation exponentially increases. So learn to love your sunscreen.

And all you prom kids? Go ahead, slap on a tan and have fun– just don't do it via a tanning booth.



Hear Anne live on the Kevyn Burger show 11:00 to noon every Thursday featuring Knifestyles of the Rich & Famous.