RE: Your skin & sun safety, June 25 – July 29.
Last issue, the Charlatan reported on the contrast between researchers who know that tanning causes cancer and students who think that it’s good (or great) in moderation.
The attraction isn’t only aesthetic appeal. As Danijela Lokas describes, “The vitamin D I get from tanning makes me happy.”
Researchers face even more challenges in preventing skin cancer than young people tanning in the sun or in tanning beds purposefully to get that bronzed look, particularly for our generation.
Post-secondary aged students are less accustomed to being outdoors in general.
CTV reported this month that only five per cent of 12 to 17 year olds were getting the recommended amount of 60 minutes of physical activity per day.
The key recommendation for fixing the problem is more outdoor play.
These habits are unlikely to change as children grow into young adults with the added pressure of college, university, or full time work, all occupations that keep us indoors.
This means for the days where we do venture outside for events like Bluesfest, Osheaga, or Canada’s Wonderland, sun safety isn’t a habit, and the greasy feel and potent smell of sunscreen holds very little appeal either.
The reduced amount of time children spend outdoors also means they’ve had fewer opportunities to learn about and practice sun safety with a parent or guardian.
That means sunscreen isn’t on their minds (or in their medicine cabinets) when they take a trip to the beach once they’ve grown up and moved out.
It’s true that we need to be smarter about sun safety as a population, but the practice has to start young, and it has to start with actually being in the sun.
We all sat quietly and listened during elementary school health class when the dangers of ultraviolet rays were explained to us, but the memory of my mother chasing me down with a greasy bottle of sunscreen had a lot more sway down the road than the diagrams they showed me in class.
