by Frank Fitton

Created on: January 01, 2011

So what do you do when your teenage child approaches you about going to an indoor tanning salon? Do you let them make their own decision? Do you forbid it? It’s a pretty tough question. Sometimes forbidding things, makes them want to do it even more. Most places will require anyone under 18 to have parental consent, but that consent will not stop someone who really wants to do it. Its a difficult question with no easy answer that’s going to work for everyone.

ABC News recently had an article entitled “Teen Tanning: Indoor Sizzle Can Overcome Parental Consent Laws” that investigated the issue about how much effect laws involving parental consent needing to be obtained were having. Their conclusion was pretty much how I feel, that the parental consent laws were not really having the desired effect. Partly due to lax enforcement, partly due to parents giving their consent too easily. Either way not much was changing.

"study published in the Archives of Dermatology this week, showing that, despite laws, researchers posing as 15-year-olds who had never tanned could, over the phone, get permission to tan at a few salons across the country without parental consent. The study estimated that 90 percent of salons in the U.S. require parental consent.Researchers also found that at most salons they called, they could begin tanning more often than the government recommendation of three times a week. In 71 percent of the facilities, they could tan every day right away, despite the risks of melanoma and other skin cancers."

One part they left out there is that in regards to the ones that didn’t ask for consent, the study only called up the tanning salons on the phone posing as a 15 year old. Who knows if when they got there they would then be informed that they need consent. Its like any business, you want to get them in the door first.

Medical professionals then fired off some shots.....

“The laws as they are currently written are not strong enough to keep teens from tanning,” said Joni Mayer, a professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at San Diego State University and an author of the study. “Part of the reason is parents are giving their consent [to tan].”

“As a medical professional subject to intense regulation, it is amazing that the tanning industry is allowed to deliver intensive ultraviolet light to minors with a minimal amount of oversight and enforcement,” said Dr. Seth J. Orlow, chairman

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