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Here's the good news – you can still get that suntan you love by going to the tanning booth and getting a spray on tan. Here’s the bad news. Getting a tan, any other way is dangerous and puts you at risk of skin cancer. That means sitting at the beach or using a tanning bed. Both put you at risk. The statistics about tanning beds and skin cancer might make your toes curl!

Studies have shown that both tanning beds and the sun can be hazardous to your health, and both can cause skin cancer. Both the sun and tanning beds release high levels of UV rays. With over one million Americans visiting a tanning salon each day, health care professional expect a large increase in skin cancer. Every year more than 3.5 million new cases of skin cancer are diagnosed in the United States.

An article by the Skin Cancer Foundation stated that it only takes ten indoor sessions to develop precancerous DNA damage. The American Journal of Medicine says that people with blue or green eyes, blonde or red hair, and fair skin are at the greatest risk for skin cancer. Skin cancer can take 10 years to show itself, so because of the delayed consequences, we tend to think it won’t happen to us. By the time a problem occurs, it's years later and too late.

So be smart, and take care of your skin by taking the appropriate precautions. If you must tan, use sunscreen and tan in moderation whether that involves tanning outside or using a tanning bed.

Anytime you are outside you should be protecting your skin through the use of sunscreen. You should wear a hat to protect your head and face and you should wear sun protection clothing to stop the penetration of dangerous UV rays.

Skin cancer is no laughing matter, and yet of all the cancers, we seem to take skin cancer the most lightly. Perhaps we are so obsessed with that golden tan that we’ve been brainwashed into thinking makes us look younger and sexier, that we are willing to put our health – in some cases our life – on the line to get that look. And since it takes so long for skin cancer to develop, it's easy to put the idea in the back of our minds where we don't think about it much.

Don't become a future statistic. Take good care of your skin and protect it all times wear UV protective swimwear and apply sunscreen on exposed skin.