According to a recent CDC report, 29 percent of white high school girls use tanning beds despite being warned about severe health hazards.
Earlier in May this year, the Food and Drugs Administration issued a warning against using tanning beds and made it compulsory for all manufactures to equip their indoor tanning beds with labels warning users about the possibility of cancer and that the devices shouldn't be used by people under 18.
Despite this, a recent Centers of Disease Control and Prevention report revealed that 29 percent of white, high school girls use tanning beds. What's even more disturbing is that 17 percent of these high school students admit to using them frequently.
Among white women aged 18 to 34, nearly 25 percent use tanning beds and 15 percent use them frequently, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Among this population indoor tanning is widespread and because of the association between indoor tanning and cancer, reducing indoor tanning is important," Gery Guy Jr., the study's lead author, told Reuters.
Dr. Jeffrey Salomon, an assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at Yale University School of Medicine, told USA Today that earlier there were no prior warnings about the potential health damage tanning beds could cause.
"Most adult patients that I treat for skin cancers preface their discussion with me by saying that when they were teenagers they were never told that sunbathing or tanning was bad for them," said Salomon. "If there was a way for teens to be able to talk to their future self, the remedy would be easy. But since the cancerous effects of tanning beds take time to evolve into skin cancers, it is hard for teens to personally identify with the risks. It is going to be a combination of parents, teachers and social media that will have to be used to target this audience."
Guy revealed that previous studies he had conducted confirmed that using tanning beds before the age of 35 increases the chances of melanoma by up to 75 percent. According to the American Cancer Society, whites are at a higher risk of developing melanoma, with one in every 50 American being at risk of developing the disease.
