March 7 - March 20, 2015
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Tanning beds pose serious dangers for teens By Alison Stanton
When Meghan Waugh was a teenager, she started using tanning beds weekly. Then a Michigan resident, Waugh wanted to add color to her naturally fair skin so that it would contrast her white cheerleading outfit. Waugh continued to use tanning beds when she moved to Arizona. Two years ago, during a routine visit to her dermatologist, Waugh got the news that a seemingly innocuous small pink growth on the back of her right knee was melanoma. Although it was just the size of a pencil eraser, removing the cancer has left Waugh with a 3-inch scar and a devout promise to never use a tanning bed again. “If someone paid me hundreds of dollars to go into a tanning bed there is no way I would do it,” Waugh says. “Getting melanoma was the scariest thing I have ever gone through.” The risks of tanning beds With spring just around the corner, local teens may be considering going to a local tanning bed to get a golden glow. Brittany Conklin, senior consultant and media relations manager from the American Cancer Society, hopes they think twice. As Conklin notes, younger people are at a higher risk than the rest of the population of suffering from the harmful effects of indoor tanning devices later in life. In addition, she says melanoma, the most deadly form of cancer, is the fourth most common cancer among young men and women ages 15 to 29. “In fact, using a tanning device before
Driver education classes scheduled for teens The search begins for the next Miss Tean Arizona
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Meghan Waugh used tanning beds regularly as a teenager and was diagnosed with melanoma two years ago. Submitted photo
the age of 35 increases the risk of melanoma by 59 percent,” she says. Because a young person’s skin is still developing, it makes them even more susceptible to the harmful effects of UV rays,
Conklin says. The dangers of tanning devices are so serious that the World Health Organization has put these in the same category as tobacco and asbestos, labeling them as “carcinogenic to humans.”
Roper suggests that teens use self-tanners or spray-on tans instead of tanning beds. If teens insist on using a tanning bed, he says they need to understand the risks of doing so, ask if the provided goggles provide UV protection, and then use them every single time. Waugh, who is cancer Eyes are also at risk free and doing well, also Tanning beds not hopes that teenagers think only harm the skin, twice before using a tanbut eyes as well, says ning bed. For teens who are Dr. Arlynn Roper, an considering it, she offers optometrist at Souththis advice: western Eye Center in “Self-tanners or spray Tempe. tans are definitely the way “The way tanning to go,” she says. beds work is like the “It’s just not worth it. sun, so the UV rays Dr. Arlynn Roper, an optometrist at Southwest- What you do at this age ern Eye Center, says tanning beds can lead to can definitely affect you that tan the skin can also burn it and affect eye damage such as dryness, cataracts and years from now, and just cancer. Submitted photo the eyes,” he says. because you don’t burn in “UV light accelera tanning bed, it does not ates the formation of cataracts, which causmean you won’t get cancer.” es cloudiness in the eyes, and it can also cause melanoma to develop in the eye.” Alison Stanton is a freelance writer who While tanning bed businesses typically lives in the East Valley. She can be reached at provide their customers with goggles, Roper alison@santansun.com says some teens and adults don’t want to wear them. Resources “They say they don’t want to look ‘racWebsites: coony’ so they say they will just close their • http://bit.ly/UnEKWa eyes, but this is not enough to prevent UV • http://bit.ly/17IcFPU damage,” Roper says. • http://1.usa.gov/1bbBePF Teens who use tanning beds may also notice that their eyes are drier than usual; if this happens Roper says they should use over-the-county artificial tears. “If they come out of the tanning bed and notice that their eyes are red, they need to watch this closely, and get medical attention quickly if it does not go away,” he says.