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A long time ago and far, far away, society determined that minors need to be protected from all evils. Those must include the perils of the tanning bed.

Regardless of what the tanning industry might say, tanning beds are bad for you. Tanning beds cause cancer, skin cancer. The last thing anyone wants is to help a teen create the conditions under which skin cancer will occur.

What teens and many adults don't know is in what ways tanning, whether on beds or on the beach, can harm you. Most people want to tan because they claim it enhances their appearance. The funny thing is I have met a racist or 2 who thought it was pretty to turn themselves a brown color ironic, no?

So not only does tanning cause cancer but it can cause other stuff to happen to your body. It's a great way to encourage wrinkles to form, oh no, oh yes! Premature wrinkling is hardly something that enhances the appearance of a 25 year old. Yet it happens more often than you might think or even like.

So women can enter into a 2 headed dragon here. All women want to look attractive so many will tan themselves thinking the darker skin makes them better looking. Then they end up seeing the premature wrinkles and so they buy those anti-wrinkling lotions and potions that is a billion dollar business.

So while they are tanning and worried about premature wrinkles things are getting worse and worse. Worse to a point where they might end up considering having a facelift long before they might otherwise need to, although I could argue that no one really needs a facelift. So they are tanning and starting a vicious circle in an effort to achieve what they perceive as beauty.

As adults it is our responsibility to protect our kids from all nasty stuff. Youngins need them some learnin' from us grown ups. So we pass rules and laws to protect them from themselves. Once they reach the age of 18 or whatever then they can do to themselves whatever they wish. Premature wrinkling is not a big deal, wrinkles are a part of the human condition and we need to change our societal attitudes about them. Cancer on the other hand, sometimes quite literally on the other hand and face and neck, is a big deal. While I recognize that teens will run to the beach in the summer to see and be seen. Part of all that included tanning and there is little we can do about that.

The best we can do is to try to educate our kids. The best we can do is to legislate away the stupidity that teens almost always have and the stupidity in this case is tanning beds.

Learn more about this author, R.A. Scott.
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