Many people hit the tanning beds before warm weather so that they will not be pale on the beach. Do these people know the risks associated with tanning beds? The effects of going to the tanning bed may not be immediate, but should be considered.

There has been a controversy surrounding the issue of whether or not the tanning bed is worse or better than lying out in the sun. While tanning beds do not emit the UVB rays that cause sunburns, they do give off three times the amount of UVA radiation that the sun does. It is large doses of these UVA rays that have been associated with an increased risk of developing malignant melanoma, a type of skin cancer. A tanning bed session of 15 to 20 minutes equals a whole day of tanning at the beach.

Dr. Gary Gross, a Salem dermatologist, said tanning beds have predominately two effects on the skin. The first is the risk of aging of the skin. “The long wave ultraviolet lights they produce penetrates fairly deeply in the skin, much deeper than the ordinary tanning rays, the UVB rays,” he said. This radiation damages the collagen, which supports the skin, thus causing skin aging, or wrinkles. The second risk is that of skin cancer.

With these risks in mind, why do people still go to the tanning bed? “I think tanning looks really nice,” Star Exton, a Radford University sophomore, said. “People like to see other people with color in them.”

Exton visits a tanning bed approximately three times a week. While she has not experienced any negative effects so far she did say, “the only thing I am worried about is wrinkles but that’s what a facelift is for and if I don’t get that then who cares, I will be old and wrinkled.”