Amazingly many people still worship the sun.
With mounting scientific evidence that tanning can cause cancer or at the very least make you look like a lizard one day, it seems more people would cover up. So, why does it seem everyone is so ambitious to get a tan?
The Skin Cancer Foundation says, “One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence more than doubles a person’s chances of developing melanoma later in life.”
FEELING IMMORTAL
As I sat in the shade of a big sheltering oak tree in New York’s Central Park this weekend, many of the people on the hill were lying out in the 90-degree sun. I noticed a young woman in her 20s with skin as white as the pages of the book I was reading. She was lying on a towel on the grassy hill. So, I leaned over from my shade tree and asked why. She quipped, “To get a tan.” I wanted to know more. “Aren’t you concerned about skin cancer or …,” but she just shrugged and returned to reading her BlackBerry.
I could understand if it were just teens and 20-somethings baking their skin out in the sun. After all, at that age you feel immortal and able to withstand anything.
A GEORGE HAMILTON TAN
But it’s not just the young immortals who are working on their tans. Sitting on Cedar Hill in Central Park there were several men in their 40s and 50s seriously catching rays. At least one could give the famously tanned actor George Hamilton a run for his money. Even the famous may have to pay a steep price for sun worship. August 11, Hamilton denied he was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Meantime, let’s hope you won’t be like Hamilton or the young woman I met in Central Park who didn’t seem to care about damaging her beautiful skin. Maybe she adopted another Scarlett O’Hara attitude, “… tomorrow is another day.” I hope it’s a good one.
Next, more on why you should not be ambitious for a tan.
And the third part in this series: Why Any Tan is Skin Damage.