Despite skin-cancer scare tactics from doctors and wrinkle warnings from women's magazines, bronzed skin is back. The indoor-tanning trend has become a fashion mandate among the teeny-bopper set.
Dermatologists are dejected: Turns out the fair skin of the past decade had less to do with their skin-cancer campaigns than the swing of the fashion pendulum. The Coppertone-look redux comes amid rising rates of skin cancer, especially among young people, and new studies linking tanning booths to the disease.
[...]
"I call tanning beds wrinkle booths because if you want your skin to be completely wrinkly, leathery and blotchy by your 30s, then go tanning," she [Dr. Brandith Irwin] said.
But such appeals lose the battle of instant gratification versus delayed consequences.
"A lot more people notice you when you are tan," Jessica Jensen said. "I'm only 15 years old, once I'm like 20 I'll start worrying about wrinkling."
Nor is she worried about skin cancer. "People have warned me about skin cancer, but I haven't seen it among my friends so I don't think it's a very popular disease."
From myjellybean.com's Dream Dictionary:
Tanning Bed
If you dream of lying in a tanning bed, it represents your wish to take shortcuts in achieving your goals. You are impatient about something, possibly related to improving yourself.
And from When Cats Attack!!:
I actually had someone ask me in high school why I didn't go to a tanning bed. I was like, "I've had no trouble getting guys being pale, why should I change what's working?" It really ticked me off. I mean, if you want to go to the tanning bed or spend your free time "laying out" then by all means, Shake n' Bake. But don't you DARE tell me I need to "get some sun." I mean, is it really going to RUIN YOUR DAY and your life if I don't sit in a cancerbox and walk out as George Harrison? Is the paleness blinding you? Am I too easy to see in the dark? Am I so translucent that you can see my organs? No? Then SHUT UP and worry about your own skin, Tammy Faye Bakker.
Why do I worry that so many mechanically tanned teens who feel skin cancer is "not a popular disease" will all end up looking like Tiresias in ten years:
"My Bulb Finally Burned Out"
My aim for this image was to choose lesion colors -- not a swatch option readily available in Photoshop.
And the image was supposed to be kind of humorous. I know. Nothing cracks people up like cancer.
Oh, well. Back to the digital drawing board...
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