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In the past 50 years, a tanned skin has been regarded as a sign of beauty, good health, and physical fitness. It has also been associated with spare time, open air activity, sports, relaxation, body care, self-esteem, and the joy of living, in general. Tanning has become a part of modern lifestyle, especially among the young. The media has certainly played an essential role in promoting the image of the tanned body as a symbol of freedom and well-being.

The use of indoor ultraviolet (UV) tanning beds began in the 1970s, but their popularity highly increased during the past 20 years. The "tanning industry" is booming, with $5 billion of annual revenue, up from $1 billion in 1992. Twenty-eight million visits are made to the 50,000 tanning facilities in the United States each year. Teenagers are specifically targeted by the tanning industry through methods such as advertisements placed in high-school newspapers. Advertisements commonly offer coupons for discounts, including "unlimited tanning" offers (Balk & Geller, 2008).

For example, in Chicago, the percentage of young people using such devices grew from 1% in 1988 to 26% in 1994, and has remained stable ever since (Robinson, 2008). The "Growing Up Today Study" (GUTS), a national US survey conducted in 1999 among 10,000 boys and girls 12 to 18 years of age, revealed that almost 10% of respondents used a tanning bed during the previous year. Girls versus boys and older girls (ages 15-18) versus younger girls (ages 12-14) were far more likely to use tanning beds (14% vs 2%, and 25% vs 5%, respectively). At the age of 14 only 7 percent of girls use tanning beds, but this percentage rises to 35 by the age of 17 (Geller, 2002). According to the girls' own answers, this tendency may be induced by peer influence and a desire to look like "other females in the media" (O'Riordan, 2006).

However, current data indicates that sun exposure can increase the risk of developing melanoma and other types of skin cancer by 60 to 70% (Nelemans, 1995; Elwood and Jopson, 1997). It has been estimated that UV radiation from the sun is responsible for at least 65% of the melanoma cases worldwide (Armstrong, 1993). Furthermore, UV exposure during childhood and intermittent rather than chronic exposure are particularly harmful in this respect (Autier, 1998; Elwood, 1992). Gallagher et al. found that people who lived in a sunny environment for more than one year before the age of 10 had a fourfold increase in the rate of melanoma,

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