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 More than half of indoor tanners start before they’re 21 years old,
and about one third of them begin before age 18, researchers report
in JAMA Dermatology.
About 45 percent of youth who start tanning before age 16 go with a
family member. For 54 percent of girls and 28 percent of boys, that
family member is mom.
“We were surprised at how common it is for a family member, usually
the mother, to take their daughters under 16 to an indoor tanning
facility for the first time,” said lead study author Meg Watson, a
cancer researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
“We were just as surprised to find that most older teens and young
adults got their first indoor tan with a friend,” Watson said by
email.
Tanning at younger ages is associated with more frequent tanning and
an increased risk of skin cancer, the study authors note.
An estimated 30 million people in the U.S. use tanning beds at least
once a year, and they have approximately 25,000 tanning salons
nationwide to choose from, according to another study recently
published in the Journal of Cancer Policy.
For the current research, Watson and her colleagues examined data
from surveys completed by 252 male and 725 female indoor tanners to
understand how early in life they had started and who might have
gone with them on their first visits to the tanning salon.
Among youth who started using salons at ages 16 or 17, about 42
percent went alone and roughly 32 percent went with a friend, the
study found. Only 20 percent of teens this age went with a family
member.
Between ages 18 and 20, 49 percent of first-time tanners went alone
and 36 percent brought a friend along.
From age 21 on, 72 percent of indoor tanners started out going
alone.
The study adds to research suggesting that mothers may have an
outsized influence on whether young people try tanning salons, said
Dr. Elizabeth Martin, president of Pure Dermatology and Aesthetics
in Hoover, Alabama, and a clinical instructor at the University of
Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.
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“This study strengthens what we already know, further demonstrating
the importance of family attitudes and permissiveness toward
tanning, and also shows the particular importance of maternal
attitudes and permissiveness on the tanning behavior of those who
begin tanning before the age of 16,” Martin, who wasn’t involved in
the study, said by email.
At least while teens still live at home, tanning may be easier for
parents to spot and address compared to other risk behaviors like
drinking or smoking, said Dr. Kathleen Cook Suozzi, a dermatology
researcher at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, who
wasn’t involved in the study.
“I think the message for parents is clear: educate your kids early
and often about the dangers of indoor tanning,” Suozzi said by
email.
“Unlike other clandestine behaviors that our youth engage in, indoor
tanning leaves a conspicuous sign - a tan,” Suozzi added. “If your
child appears tan in the winter, or before an event like prom,
chances are high that they are engaging in indoor tanning.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2or4j88 JAMA Dermatology, online March 22,
2017.
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