This article is from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100419/hl_nm/us_addicted_tanning
There has been a recent study done by Catherine Mosher and Sharon Danoff-Burg to students at a northeastern university to experiment if whether people who lie in tanning beds too much have addictive behavior or not. The two researchers asked 229 students about alcohol and substance abuse behaviors; all of the students said that they have used indoor tanning beds in the previous year. Just under 22 percent of the study participants met the criteria for addiction. These people who met the criteria for addiction had indeed used tanning facilities more frequently in the previous years than those who are were not addicted.
The articles claims, "This is not the first study suggesting that tanning - whether outdoors or on tanning beds -- can be addicting. Others have found that as many as half young adults and beachgoers meet some criteria for a 'substance-related disorder' when it comes to tanning. Previous research has also linked tanning and cigarette smoking."
Mosher says, "From a public health perspective, the findings suggest that there may be a subgroup of individuals who are addicted to indoor tanning and have an underlying mood disturbance."
Of course, John Overstreet, a spokesperson for the Indoor Tanning Association rejects the idea that people who excessivly tan have an addiction. "According to the Association, 30 million people in the United States use indoor tanning facilities, making it a $5 billion industry."
What do you guys think about indoor tanning? Do you think that people will stop tanning if studies do confirm that indoor tanning is linked to addictive behavior and mood disorders?
Monday, April 19, 2010
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4 comments:
anything our body can use can be addicting, in this case, it is the sun/uv rays from tanning beds. it does makes sense that tanning beds can be addicting, and it is a dangerous thing to be addicted to (skin cancer anyone?), but i dont like the way the article presents beachgoers as potentially having sometime of substance abuse problem because they are in the sun frequently. In my opinion, those kind of comments about addictions just dilute the severity of other more serious ones such as with drugs, alcohol, etc. comments like those make me expect to see headlines like "100% of people shown to be addicted to water". yes it's ridiculous to imagine that, but that's somewhat how i read the summary of the article. all i could think was, well, we need uv rays to some extent, so technically arent ALL humans addicted to the sun?
I'm not entirely convinced by the results of the study, and I think that more research, or a follow up study, needs to be done in order to prove the link between tanning beds and other addictions.
And according to the article, "The study was only able to note the connections between tanning and other factors like anxiety and substance use, and *there is no way to tell if one of these behaviors actually leads to the other*."
in my opinion i do not really think the connection of being addicted to tanning can be made to the addiction of drugs/alcohol.
addicted to tanning beds? that is so ridiculous. People should know that tanning beds are not great for your skin. THey can actually cause skin cancer..
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