Tanning beds are a popular, easy, and quick way to get a tan that you might not want to lay out in the sun for hours to get. Tons of people around the world use tanning beds, but do they really know the facts behind them?

According to studies, people who use tanning beds have an increased chance of getting skin cancer. The harmful UV rays can slowly but surely kill someone. The study, by a team at Harvard Medical School, studied data from seven hundred thirty thousand nurses followed for twenty years and they discovered that people who tan in their youth, have an increased chance of developing cancer in their older years. There are many people around the world who sign-up to tan at multiple tanning salons which will cause extreme over exposure to the UV rays. There are many people who protest using tanning beds and the FDA has even attempted to ban tanning for people under the age of eighteen. Tanning beds also cause a loss of elasticity in the skin and causes skin to wrinkle, as well as eye damage due to the harmful UV rays. Excessive UV exposure can also cause the immune system to weaken and make a person more vulnerable to becoming ill. Is being ill or having cancer worth getting a tan? There are so many reasons to not want to use tanning beds, yet there is something so addictive about them.

Although it may seem like tanning beds do nothing but harmful things to the human body, they may not be as bad as they seem. In fact, tanning beds are designed to give you the tan that you would get by laying out on a perfect summers day for an hour or two. The UV rays in the tanning bed are balanced to perfectly stimulate the maximum growth of melanin pigment, as well as Vitamin D. Vitamin D is much needed in the human body, and studies say that some Americans are not receiving enough UV rays and are actually recommended to get more sunlight. There has only been one death in a tanning bed recorded and it was a freak accident. It was due to the reaction of a drug called Psoralen. One of the last pros of tanning salons is of course the all over tan that you receive. We live in a society where unfortunately many people put their health at risk to receive “beauty”.

With the many negative outlooks on tanning beds and the very few positive side effects, it’s safe to say that tanning beds will always be seen as an open doorway to death and may soon be banned.