Sunbeds: the fact and the fiction

It's common knowledge that over exposure to UV light can lead to skin cancer so why are so many of us still putting ourselves at risk by using sunbeds? Alex Atkinson investigates the lure and the laws of tanning.

What is wrong with a naturally pale skin tone? Quite a lot it seems when around a quarter of a million 11-17 year olds are using sunbeds to achieve a tan*. Be it the golden glow of Cat Deeley or the mahogany skin of Jordan, tans are everywhere and it sends a powerful message: brown is beautiful.

When brown became beautiful

Tanned skin used to be associated with manual labourers, but in European culture it became desirable in the '20s when it became a sign of wealth. Only those with money had the leisure time to acquire a tan. One of the first celebrities to make bronzed skin fashionable was Coco Chanel. Skimpy swimwear and lotion designed to maximise tanning followed with the first commercial sunbeds arriving in the '60s.

It won't happen to me

The threat of skin cancer (known as malignant melanoma in its most deadly form), has hovered over sunbed use for some 30 years. However it was only in 2009 that international experts pointed the finger definitively when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) changed its assessment of sunbeds and sunlamps from 'probably carcinogenic to humans' to 'carcinogenic to humans.'

Skin cancer rates have soared for those in 60-70 year old age group because they were the first generation with access to cheap package holidays and sunbeds. Incidence rates of melanoma in this age group have risen from seven cases per 100,000 people in the mid 1970s to 36 cases per 100,000 today according to Cancer Research UK.