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With summer in the near future, it means we are all going to have to bare a little more skin. Although some people may fear exposing their pale skin to the sun for the first time, others are already tanned. Chances are when you see that girl in the grocery store that looks as though she has spent the last month in the Caribbean, the reality is that she probably gets that skin through tanning beds.

Although the dangers of tanning have long been known, there are still a surprisingly large amount of women considered “tanorexics”. Tanorexia is a slang term used to describe someone who can never be tanned enough. They are always using tanning beds, spray on tans or baking in the sun to achieve that darker skin tone. A new study done by researchers from Philadelphia’s Fox Chase Cancer Center examined 400 students between the ages of 18 and 24 according to the same parameters used to define substance abuse. Their goal was to examine the symptoms of withdrawal, obsessive patterns, and temperament related to desiring a “healthy-looking” skin shade. These students were examined using questions about how they feel about the need to tan, if their knowledge about cancer causing tanned beds has any weight on how much they tan, and also were asked about their smoking and exercise habits. After analyzing these students it was determined that about 27% of them showed signs of being “tanorexic”.


Although there may be alternate reasons for tanorexia, the main reason is to achieve that level of perfection that is so widely created in the media. Rarely do we see celebrities that have pale or pasty skin so why would anything think this is attractive? And even though tanning causes extremely high rates of deadly skin cancer and premature aging , often this takes some time before it takes a toll. Young women who are tanning will probably not see any signs of the damage tanning does on their skin for quite a few years.