With spring break quickly approaching, many students are flocking to tanning beds, but what they do not realize is that the risks can outweigh the benefits.
For Khristian Prestenbach, a resource management junior from Houma, the scars are very real. After tanning five days a week for three years, her dermatologist had to remove two moles containing stage zero melanoma.
“I have to wear sunscreen every day,” Prestenbach said. “I can’t wear a bathing suit when I go to the beach because my risk of melanoma is so high and I feel so stupid.”
A recent study by the Journal of the American Medical Association on Dermatology, the number of skin cancer cases due to tanning is higher than the number of lung cancer cases due to smoking. In the U.S. alone, over 400,000 cases of skin cancer can be attributed to indoor tanning.
“You’re putting yourself in a tanning bed to be tan, and you’re killing yourself because melanoma can kill you,” Prestenbach said.
“If I wouldn’t have got it cut out, I would’ve had to go through chemo,” Prestenbach said. “If it goes to my lymph nodes, it can spread from the liver to every organ in your body. People don’t know that. They have no idea.”
She mentioned that she used to consider tanning as a therapeutic activity. It is ironic because instead of relaxing her, it only brought troubles.
“I would give anything to be pasty white than have these ugly scars on my back that I can’t cover. When I wear a bathing suit, when I wear a tank top, all you can see is like those big gashes in my back and that doesn’t look good. Pale looks better than scars on your back.”
These imminent dangers do not faze some people. Brinsley Gautreau, a family and consumer sciences freshman from Saint Amant, says that even though she knows about the risks, she still tans regularly.
“I tan around five times a week,” Gautreau said. “It makes me feel better being tan than white.”
“I do worry [about the risks], but I’m more worried about being tan. It’s a self-esteem thing.”
Maria Templet, a birth to five freshman from Pierre Part, admits to using tanning beds before, but says that she really is against them.
She said that though she is darker, she knows all about the risks of cancer and diseases. It can also be an expensive activity for penny-pinching students.