Tuesday, August 4th

Lauren Shiraka has entered a blog contest in an effort to raise awareness around the dangers of tanning. The winner of this blog contest has a choice between a $500 donation to the Melanoma Research Foundation in their name or a $500 Visa Gift Card. If Lauren wins, she has offered to donate the proceeds to the Glenna Kohl Fund for Hope. Please post your comment for support for Lauren's wonderful piece below to help her win this beneficial contest. Thank you for your continued support:


Intervention time for nation’s “tanorexics”

“How does my stomach look?” asks my younger sister Cara, lifting up her shirt to reveal her flat, tanned abs. Before I can reply, she pinches her bronzed skin and grimaces, letting out a long sigh of disgust before muttering, “I’m so pale. I need to go tanning.”
Unlike my sister, who carries a set of protective goggles in her purse, I’ve never set foot in a tanning salon. However, being a member of the generation that inspired the term “tanorexia,” I’m certainly not immune to tan envy. I’ll admit that when I was younger, and more susceptible to the “bronzed is beautiful” adage, I would spend hours laying out in my backyard, disdaining sunscreen as only a hindrance.
My quest for the perfect tan ended very abruptly at the age of 18, when my mother announced to the family that she had Stage I Melanoma, one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer. Flipping through magazines and watching television, I had seen all the skin safety PSA’s, but before my mother’s diagnosis, I had never considered skin cancer as a “real” cancer. Seeing the large, deeply indented scar on my mother’s leg where the cancer was removed quickly became a constant reminder of how sincerely wrong I was. And in later months, when my mother experienced several scares concerning the cancer spreading to her lymph nodes, melanoma became both real and terrifying to me.
Our family’s brush with melanoma did not have the same effect on my younger sister, however. Instead of cutting back, my sister became a full-fledged “tanorexic.” As my sister progressed to new more frightening shades of orange, I tried my best to dissuade her bad habit. But, with constant positive reinforcement from her fellow bronzed best friends, it was no use.
According to Steven E. Zimmet, MD of Zimmet Vein & Dermatology, Austin, Texas and an advisor to dermanetwork.org, (http://www.dermanetwork.org/) my sister and her friends are still at-risk for contracting melanoma despite their youth. “People, including young people, die every day from melanoma,” said Zimmet. “There is strong evidence that exposure to UV radiation during indoor tanning increases the risk of melanoma, especially when that exposure occurs at an early age.”
Teenage girls are largely unaware that melanoma is the most common cancer among women aged 25 to 32, and that they too are susceptible. Glenna Kohl was diagnosed with Stage III Melanoma just after graduating from Salve Regina College at the age of 22. A self-described “sun enthusiast,” Kohl didn’t truly comprehend the consequences of unprotected, overexposure to sunlight until she began her own battle with skin cancer. In a speech about her disease, Kohl once said that she knew that tanning could be harmful to her, but ignored the sentiment, considering the ritual her “one indulgence.” Sadly, Kohl lost her life just four years after her diagnosis, making her one of 10,000 individuals to lose the fight with melanoma every year.
Without being personally affected by skin cancer, it’s easy to understand why some young girls continue to expose themselves to harmful UV light. For them, improved appearance and acceptance may triumph over the seemingly not so serious threat of skin cancer. But, recently, I’ve begun to wonder why many teenage girls, like my sister, continue to tan despite fully understanding its potentially deadly consequences.
In recent years, researchers have addressed the same query, and have come to classify frequent tanning as “tanning dependence,” an addictive behavior similar to alcoholism or drug addiction. Researchers have found that many tanners could be described as addicts through studies using CAGE questionnaires, which evaluate an individual’s level of addiction according to whether they can cut-down the behavior, become annoyed when unable to perform the behavior, feel guilty for continuing the behavior, or continue the behavior despite having an eye-opening experience. Such research suggests that UV light itself may have addictive qualities, and may explain why PSA’s aren’t enough to keep U.S. teenagers out of tanning beds.
However, my sister and her friends may soon find it harder to keep up their routines at the tanning salon. More than 20 states have legislation pending about restricting tanning bed usage. In March of 2009, Arkansas and Mississippi signed into law new legislation to restrict access for minors under 14 to tanning salons. Thanks to friends and family of Glenna Kohl, similar legislation is being considered in Massachusetts, and if approved, may soon make it harder to own and operate a tanning salon as well as to partake in its services.
Lauren Wright, director of dermanetwork.org, ( http://www.dermanetwork.org/) is in full support of the pending legislation: “These laws are needed to stem the tide of sun damage and the potential for more serious skin cancer diagnosis,” she said. “The term ‘killer tan’ could have a whole new meaning for this generation.”
In the mean time, we must continue to educate our friends, family and younger sisters about the serious ramifications of overexposure to UV light. With growing evidence to legitimate tanorexia or tanning dependence as a true addiction, it’s time for a national intervention.

For more information about skin cancer and the fight to restrict tanning bed usage, check out “Term Killer Tan Could Have New Meaning, Say Experts” on dermanetwork.org. http://www.dermanetwork.org/news/news_details.asp?ID=550

For more facts about melanoma, head to: www.melanomafoundationne.org.