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Indoor-Tanning Industry Spreads Half-Baked Health Claims

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 27, 2008

Shades of Lucky Strikes! The people who promote indoor tanning want you to believe that putting your body into their version of a big Easy Bake Oven is good for you and will protect you from vitamin D deficiency.

Thanks for the concern, but people don't need a tan to get their vitamin D.

With beach season upon us, the Indoor Tanning Association has launched a national advertising campaign as a "pre-emptive strike" (their words) against dermatologists warning about the dangers of excessive sun exposure.

The organization has latched onto medical research showing that Americans - the New England Journal of Medicine reports as many as 60 percent - are deficient in vitamin D, which people get from two sources: their diet and sun exposure.

True enough, vitamin D is an important nutrient that can protect our bodies from many diseases, including certain kinds of cancer, including breast cancer. That, though, does not make it right for the industry to promote sun tanning as a healthy activity.

What the $5 billion-a-year tanning industry doesn't tell you is that a few minutes of natural sun exposure - a couple of times a week - will produce adequate levels of vitamin D. But dermatologists liken the typical tanning-bed session to a full afternoon in the sun.

The campaign is reminiscent of cigarette ads from half a century ago, which said smoking helped with concentration and dulled the appetite so you won't overeat. As a society, we've agreed that it was wrong for the cigarette industry to tout the health benefits of a product known to cause cancer. The standard should be no different for the tanning industry.

Yet on its Web site, the tanning industry says that "the anti-cancer benefits of UV exposure highlighted by recent studies far outweigh the risks associated with over-exposure." Talk about spin.

To be sure, tanning beds have treatment value. The World Health Organization says while they shouldn't be used for cosmetic purposes, the devices should be used on doctors' orders to treat diseases such as rickets, psoriasis and jaundice.

But the industry is fooling itself - and trying to fool you - by suggesting the explosion of tanning salons was spurred by people who use them in moderation for health reasons.

People can get all the sun they need by moving about in their daily lives or taking a nice walk outdoors for five minutes a couple of times a week without sunscreen. Eating a healthy diet, which includes foods like salmon and fortified milk and cereals, or taking a vitamin supplment also will sustain your vitamin D levels, says noted St. Petersburg dermatologist James Spencer.

What's insidious about the tanning industry's campaign is that their market is made up mostly of teenage girls - a group not known for doing things in moderation.

Telling a teenage girl that the health benefits of indoor tanning is worth the risk is irresponsible and should be stopped.

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