There’s a craze going on in America in recent years.  This thing is sweeping the nation.  28 million Americans are doing something so dangerous that they can get melanoma, skin cancer, from it.  Data by youthnoise.com shows forty percent of females and eleven percent of males between the ages of seventeen and eighteen do this maybe three times a week or a number of times a month.

You ask yourself why are all these people risking getting skin cancer?  Well, they’re doing it to look good.  Many fads have come and gone in the American society and this is just another page in its long history, from the Afros and bell-bottoms to texting and sexting. 

Young Americans all over the country are fake bakin’.  That’s right up to eighty percent of Americans under the age of 25 think that they look better with a tan according to a survey done by youthnoise.com.  What has our society come to?  Now all of a sudden pale and pasty aren’t necessarily beautiful.  In some countries that’s how they like it and have liked it for maybe a thousand years. 

Now we’re not saying everyone who tans will get skin cancer, but some people are excessive with their tanning.  Tanning works in that the UVA rays penetrate the epidermis of the skin (outer layer) where they trigger melanocytes to produce more melanin.  Melanin is the pigment that gives the skin a darker color and protects you from harmful rays.

But UVA rays can go deeper than you want, which causes skin cancer.  The UVA rays can damage the immune system and then travel throughout the organs.  Kid’s health say 1 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed annually.  This number has increased in the last couple years.

Is it really worth it to risk getting cancer to look like you’re darker than your normal skin color?  Does it actually look good to look like an orange or a penny? We think not.