Tanning Bed Pros & Cons

Nowadays everyone wants to look nice and beautiful and, what is more important, tanned. Tan has become available not only to the people whose countries are blessed by being located on warm latitudes and washed by warm seas and oceans. With the advent of indoor tanning beds, the whole idea has become available for everyone.

However, the process and effects of a tanning bed are still discussed and tanning beds’ pros and cons are evaluated. From one point of view tanning beds are surely safe and they are only beneficial as providing good looks and nice feelings. However, there is a different point of view, quite opposite – that tanning beds are harmful to health and can be fraught with various really bad consequences. Every party is pretty sure in their opinions and arguments about a tanning bed pros and cons are frequent.

1. Pros

One of the most essential things that our organisms require is Vitamin D. We stay healthy and are less liable to getting ill if there is enough of it. However, there is a problem with getting it as long as it comes from the sun. In the countries with dark and cold winters it is complicated to get the required share of sun and Vitamin D. It can be acquired from supplements but never in the amounts needed. One of the pros of tanning beds is that they trigger the production of Vitamin D in our bodies due to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays they produce. It is so far the only safe and available way to get enough sun in all the long winter months.

There are a lot of tanning salons that operate nowadays. They are available in every city and inexpensive. You can consult a professional working there on the account of the skin type and recommended time and amount of tan for you. Indoor Tanning Association makes sure that people using tanning beds do not get sunburnt or hurt. Tanning in salons is very safe and beneficial in all the ways in spite of all the tanning bed pros and cons.

Apart from shiny nicely colored skin the usage of tanning beds affects positively a person’s inner state and mood. It provides definitely a positive psychological influence on a person similar to the one that a day spent on a sunny vocation. The scarcity of sunlight is bad for both the physical and psychological health of a person. In all the cases the latter is no less important than the former. With little sunlight, fewer endorphins are released and a person feels unhappy and sad and unwell. When sunlight is in abundance, a person feels relieved and much more relaxed. So far in the discussion of tanning beds pros and cons the former has an advantage.

2. Cons

But when it comes to cons, it is a different story. The type of rays emitted by the sun is ultraviolet-B (UVB) rays. While tanning beds emit ultraviolet-A (UVA) rays. They are much more powerful in intensity and are capable of producing rather serious effects on a person’s health. First of all, they alter the skin cells’ DNA and therefore cause the skin of a person to age prematurely. Moreover, dryness and skin damage can also occur if a person does not use any protection cremes and so on.

Tanning bed pros and cons discussion always come up with the issues of cancer development. Cases of cancer are diagnosed every year and their number is frighteningly huge. It is generally basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma that is met most frequently; but if one can say so, this diagnosis is good news – it is treatable. But you cannot say so about melanoma. In the majority of cases, it is lethal and is in charge of many young women’s deaths. As long as young women between the ages of 16 and 29 use tanning beds frequently than any other age or sex group, they get the condition in 70% of cases. This is unhappy statistics but it is real.

Moreover, in the argument about tanning bed pros and cons the latter will probably win as long as UVA are not only capable of causing cancer but they suppress the immune system and evoke damage to eyes. American Academy of Dermatologists names three distinctive and very serious consequences of tanning beds overuse – they are melanoma, cataracts and blindness. Perhaps, in the choice of being sad and healthy or happy but almost dead, it is better to think beforehand.