Tanning Bed

Truth about Tanning - Tanning Is NaturalTanning is your body’s natural protection against sunburn - it is what your body is designed to do. Many have referred to this process as “damage” to your skin, but calling a tan “damage” is a dangerous oversimplification. Here is why:

Calling a tan damage to your skin is like calling exercise damage to your muscles. Consider, when one exercises you are actually tearing tiny muscle fibers in your body. On the surface, examined at the micro-level, that could be called “damage.” But that damage on the micro-level is your body’s natural way on the macro-level of building stronger muscle tissue. So to call exercise “damaging” to muscles would be terribly deceiving. The same can be said of sun exposure: Your body is designed to repair any damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light exposure. Developing a tan is its natural way to protect against the dangers of sunburn and further exposure.

Saying that any ultraviolet light exposure causes skin damage is a dangerous oversimplification. It would be like saying that since water causes drowning, humans should avoid all water. Yes, water causes drowning, but our bodies also need water; we would die without it. Similarly, we need ultraviolet light exposure; we would die without it.

Tanning bed Photos

Tanning beds are used for different reasons in different places all across the world. In the US, tanning is more seasonal. It is most often used as a way to jump start the tanning process, so that once the summer begins, they can go to the beach or enjoy other outdoor activities and already have a significant base tan built up. This is also why tanning lotions and bronzers are more commonly used in the US.
Europeans may enjoy tanning seasonally, but less so than Americans. This is due to many areas in Europe having significantly fewer days of sunshine than the USA, so Europeans are more likely to use a tanning bed all year long. European tanning beds generally use a different type of lamp as well, with UVB ratings in the 1% to 3% range. These lamps have less UVA and will produce a sunburn quicker, but many Americans seem to like them because a short session produces a “reddening”, or instant gratification. These lamps actually produce a slower deep tan (but a faster base tan) that fades faster, but are simply marketed as “hotter”, although technically they have about the same amount of UV but with different ratios of UVA and UVB.

Tanning bed