There is an article I found very interesting in today’s issue of the Taunton Daily Gazette out of Taunton, Massachusetts. The article Taunton Taunton”Young women slow to get the message about skin cancer” talks about the seeming lack of attention to skin cancer by young women in this country.
With the popularization of that rich, dark tan look pretty much ever since the 1970’s, skin cancer has become an increasing problem. The groups most embracing of the tanned look would be young women. Of course with that comes a huge increase in skin cancer.
The numbers from the Skin Cancer Foundation are astounding. Among young women, cases of melanoma have increased over 50 percent in the last three decades to 13.9 cases per 100,000 women. Cases of the most common type of skin cancer, Basal cell cancer have also more than doubled for women under 40 during that time period.
“The baby boomers are now maturing, and sun effects of their youth are starting to show up now,” said Dr. Ramzi Saad, a dermatologist at the South Shore Skin Center in Plymouth.
Skin cancer experts say that baby boomer moms have passed their love of the sun to their daughters and granddaughters.
It seems like the only way that young women are learning about skin cancer is when someone else in their family suffers from it. Even then it doesn’t seem like its that strong a persuasion to take precautions from the sun.
The problem is that our culture has to change. When young girls see celebrities every day with their tanned good looks being fawned over by the media. Of course that’s going to be the look they try to copy.
Deb Girard, executive director of the Melanoma Foundation of New England, said young people aren’t getting the skin cancer message because they live in a society that is obsessed with being tanned.
“Today, we still talk to lots of kids who say being tan means you’re smarter, sexier, all of those things,” she said.
She said a grassroots campaign is needed to raise awareness.
“It’s like wearing a seat belt to save lives; not tanning can save lives,” she said.
There are two ways to think about these things. Of course skin cancer awareness is important. Its probably something that deserves an assembly or awareness day in our schools. I don’t think it deserves whole classes devoted to it or anything like that. Our children have more important things to be learning while their in school.
There’s so many risks out there for our young people to learn about that its hard to determine what takes precedent. There’s only so much stuff that can be put on kids early. Some of the other lessons I’m afraid have to be learned the hard way. Whether that means going through it yourself, or having someone close go through it. The problem with skin cancer though, is that once that happens a lot of your damage has already been done.
Its a complicated situation that I really don’t have the answers too. I urge parents to start teaching their kids early about applying sunscreen and wearing protective clothing. Even if they don’t fully understand why their doing it at first, hopefully it can just become a habit until they do.
As far as Hollywood and celebrity, what they portray as cool isn’t really going to change. Things that are good for you are generally not considered the “cool thing” in that sense. Maybe its a pessimistic attitude, but I don’t see that changing. The sun and tanning has to be looked at the same as a drug such as alcohol. Moderation is okay, but over do it, and its gonna wreck some serious havoc in your life.
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