Sun
Tanning - But First, Some Sun History
 It
was over 400 years ago that Copernicus declared that the sun
was the center of our universe. Throughout history, the human
race has had a special relationship with the sun. Primitive
societies in every continent have worshiped the sun as the
god that provided warmth and made the crops grow.
Cultures changed over hundreds of years and class systems
developed and the sun became a symbol of a different kind,
one that clearly defined who you were. Skin color became that
visible definer - one that separated working classes from
the ruling classes, and separated the master from his servants.
Pale skin belonged to the leisure upper classes, while darker
skin indicated a life of outdoor labor. The paler one's skin
the higher the class, and men and women went to great (and
sometimes unhealthy) lengths to be pale.
Women of ancient Greece and Rome used lead paints and chalks
to whiten their faces. Unfortunately this beauty treatment
could cause death through slow lead poisoning.
 By
the mid-10th century, arsenic became the preferred skin whitener,
once again with sometimes deadly results. Other methods of
making the skin white were less poisonous -- during the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, women painted thin blue lines of their
foreheads to give their skin a translucent look, and carried
parasols or wore masks whenever they ventured outdoors.
These class distinctions found their way to America, where
no Southern belle or Northern society debutante dare go out
in the sun without her parasol to protect her delicate pallor.
It wasn't until the 20th century that society began accepting
bronzed skin.
Blame
It On The French
 Two
French celebrities can be credited (or blamed) with the transformation
from pale to tan. In the 1920s, as fashions were freeing women
from confining clothes, thanks in part to designer Coco Chanel,
she inadvertently gave the fashion world another new trend:
while cruising from Paris to Cannes, she obtained a suntan,
probably by accident.
At the same time fashions were changing, so were lifestyles.
Women came out of the house to enjoy outdoor life, with hiking,
picnics, lawn tennis and other "acceptable" yet
still "feminine" activities. Soon, fashionable women
everywhere threw away years of tradition to be tanned.
 On
beaches throughout Europe, women sunbathed, wearing decorative
sun hats and shawls not for protection but as fashion statements.
Brown and beige-tinted powders and creams were created to
be brushed on the places the sun had missed. The fashion world
featured clothes for women who wanted to flaunt their new
tans; shoes were worn without stockings and sleeveless dresses
became stylish. Bathing costumes that had covered women's
legs with bloomers, now bared the leg, and swimming became
an acceptable sport for women. 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 afford a vacation
to an exotic, warm climate.
By the 1970s, an entire generation had baked their bodies
in the sun, totally oblivious to the fact that the sunburns
they had acquired in their youth would develop into skin cancers
10 to 20 years later.
Recognizing
The Dangers Of The Sun
 |
It
wasn't until 1979 that the FDA concluded that sunscreens
could help prevent skin cancer, and developed the
first rating system for SPFs. In 1985, alarmed at
the growing incidence of skin cancer, the American
Academy of Dermatology (AAD) became the first medical
society to start a public education skin cancer campaign,
warning the public about the dangers of overexposure
to the sun. In 1988, the AAD held a consensus conference
on photo aging and photo damage. The conclusion from
that conference was that "there
is no safe way to tan." |
The indoor
tanning industry first became popular in the 1970s and by
the 1980s had taken hold in the United States. Today between
20,000 and 24,000 salons are listed in the Yellow Pages, claiming
22 million plus clients each year.
1997:
In a survey in Seventeen magazine, 2/3 of the teens
say they look better with a tan and feel healthier,
more sophisticated, and 50% say they looked more athletic. |
 |
1998:
A report from the Annual Meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science questions the value of
sunscreens, leading to national publicity. Some products
promising UVA and UVB protection do not protect adequately
against UVA and may give sunbathers a false sense of
protection, the report says. |
|
1999:
The AAD continues to urge Americans to use sunscreens,
avoid sunbathing and cover up. It is estimated that
more than one million Americans will developed skin
cancer in 1999, with 9,800 dying from the disease, 7,800
of them from malignant melanoma. Yet despite these alarming
figures, men and women still enjoy the tanned look.
Just look around you on any warm summer day - you'll
see them, the seekers of the sun. |
|
2000:
The skin cancer rates were still growing, but the sun-worshipers
are still out there or still tanning at the tanning
salon all year round. Today the effects of sun exposure
are becoming an increasing concern due to the decline
in the earth's ozone layer. The ozone layer screens
out the most harmful of the ultraviolet rays, but is
becoming thinner all over the world, and holes that
fluctuate in size have developed in various places.
This situation increases the risk of skin cancer and
of sunburn. |
|
|
2001-2002:
Ditto from 2000, some people
will never learn. I live in Florida where there are
skin cancer treatment
centers almost on every corner (it seems that way).
Students here are taught to use sunscreens and to
wear caps. The rest of the world comes here to tan.
Florida's number one industry is tourism, and our
sunshine is one of the reasons that people come to
visit. I can always spot a tourist, they are the ones
with the sunburns, the rest of us have learned the
hard way. I had my first precancerous spot removed
from my face this month (April 2002), my dermatologist
said it was from all the years of tanning as a teenager.
I had skin cancer removed
from the same area in 2003; again from years of tanning.
(Darn).
2003 - 2007:
Sunscreen,
sunscreen, sunscreen, every two hours when outdoors, or more often if you are in the water. SPF of 15 or 20 -- even better! 30... that works too.
If it is raining, okay none needed. |
|
|
