Having that perfect sun kissed tan all year round is something many people try to achieve but what if it means getting skin cancer? Is it still worth it?
About five years ago Kimberly Mansley, 42, made a decision that unknowingly at the time ultimately saved her life.
“I went to get cosmetic surgery. I wanted a mole on my face removed,” Mansley said. “The doctor said ‘I am not going to remove that mole. There is nothing wrong with it.’“
The doctor was more concerned with a mole on Mansley’s thigh.
“She removed the mole on my leg and called me the very next day,” Mansley said. “She told me I needed more of the skin removed… I had stage-three melanoma in my leg.”
“I was scared, I was petrified, I was shocked,” Mansley said. “I thought I was going to die.”
From there Mansley had to undergo surgery to remove all the cancer cells from her thigh. Luckily she did not need further treatment because the cancer had not yet spread past her leg.
“The surgery process was the worst part,” Mansley said. “I had 32 stitches; it was the most painful thing I have ever went through and I now have a seven inch scar on my leg, it is horrible.”
After the surgery she had to go regularly for check-ups every three months.
Looking back, sadly, Mansley believes she brought the skin cancer upon herself.
“When I was 16 or 17 tanning salons were brand new,” she said. “All my friends and I would go after school; tanning was just the cool thing to do.”
Mansley said that she absolutely believes that her tanning habits were the cause of her melanoma.
According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, people who first use a tanning bed before age 35 increase their risk for melanoma by 75 percent.
Mansley said it was typical to walk down the hallways at school and hear girls saying ‘oh my gosh you are so tan or wow you are getting so dark!’
“We did not know the risks,” she said. “It became a trend, we would show up to school and compare our tans.”
“There was a long period where I was not tanning…but when I started to get back into shape and started feeling good about myself again that is when I started back up with tanning a little later in my life because tanning made my skin look good,” Mansley said.
At this point Mansley is just thankful that the melanoma was caught before it had the chance to spread, but her seven-inch scar is a constant reminder of the awful experience. She knows that cancer runs in her family and expresses that information to her college aged daughter, who is now at risk.
“I tell my daughter all the time [about the risks of skin cancer] because she sits in the sun and I show her the scar on my leg,” Mansley said.
Her daughter, Gina Mansley, has taken some precautions since her mother’s brush with skin cancer to hopefully prevent getting cancer herself.
“Ever since my mom had cancer, I don’t tan anymore in tanning booths or lay out in the sun as much as I used to,” she said. “I will lay out maybe for an hour and then I try to put a t-shirt on or something to cover my skin as much as possible and I also use SPF 50 suntan lotion.”
The FDA has proposed a regulation to limit tanning to only those 18 and older but Mansley does not think raising the minimum tanning age to 18 will prevent people from choosing to tan. She is probably right because tanning continues to be a trend among college aged students.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, it has been found that in the United States 35 percent of adults, 59 percent of college students and 17 percent of teens have reported using a tanning bed in their lifetime and evidence from multiple studies has shown that exposure to UV radiation from indoor tanning devices is associated with an increased risk of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer.
Kayla Connell, a junior at Bloomsburg University, said she considers tanning a trend at her college. “I know many people who go in tanning beds everyday,” she said.
According to a recent conducted by JAMA Dermatology, researchers found that, of the first 125 colleges on the “US News and World Report” list of the best colleges and universities for undergraduate education in the United States in 2013, almost half (48%) of them had indoor tanning facilities either right on campus (12%), in off-campus housing, or in both.
Shockingly college campuses are making it easy for students to access tanning facilities. The study also found that campus cash cards could be used to purchase tanning locally for 14.4 percent of the colleges.
Connell has just recently started using a tanning bed again for the second time in her life. She joined a tanning salon just about a mile away from her college campus.
“I began tanning mostly because a lot of my other friends were tanning and they always called me the ‘pale’ one,” Connell said. “It was always the running joke.”
“I understand the risks and I am concerned about them,” Connell said. “I associate being tan with the idea of summer and the beach therefore I personally feel happier when I am tan.”
Connell is just one of thousands of college girls who choose to tan even though the risks are obvious.
Junior Cabrini College student Jamie Roofo started tanning at age 18 because she wanted to be tan for big events that were coming up during her senior year of high school including prom, graduation, and senior week.
“I think I look better tan and I used to feel really relaxed lying in the bed. I was also told that it reduces stress,” Roofo said.
Roofo stopped tanning at a tanning salon because it got really expensive but she joined Planet Fitness, which offered tanning at the gym. Roofo was able to work out and tan all in one location.
Currently Roofo has taken a break from tanning only because it is more convenient for her to work out on campus at Cabrini’s gym instead of going to Planet Fitness.
When finding out that many colleges in the US offer tanning directly on campus Roofo was excited to hear the news and wished Cabrini was one of those schools.
“I think that’s awesome because college students are always looking for a convenient tanning salon place and one that’s also affordable because we’re always broke,” she said.
Roofo has considered the risks of skin cancer from tanning but she said she does not worry about the risks as much as she probably should. “When I went to a tanning salon previously, I had to sign a paper before using one [a tanning bed] with the risks listed.”
Just like so many others who choose to tan in an indoor tanning facility, reading and signing off on the risks is not enough to stop Roofo. She plans on using a tanning bed again in the future.
Mansley on the other hand refuses to tan ever again and wishes she could get others to stop using tanning facilities as well. “I think tanning salons should be shut down completely,” she said. She does not want what she went though to happen to others but realizes that no one really thinks it is going to happen to them until it is too late.
