Tanning addicts still soaking up sun

By Rory Evans

updated 12:30 p.m. ET May 31, 2009

Soaking up rays can seem intoxicating — and that may explain why many otherwise health-conscious women keep getting tan.

You probably know a summertime tanorexic. Maybe you are one yourself: The first day the mercury shimmies over 75, you're on the plaza outside your office at lunch, shucking away your cardigan, baring your arms, shutting your eyes to the warmth, absorbing sunshine like the statue you're leaning against. Maybe you wait for the weekend, though — and then make up for lost time, rigging up elaborate wind guards on the beach.

“When I lived in New York, I would strip down to my bikini in Central Park the second there was a glimpse of sun,” says Katie, a 25-year-old now living in Washington, D.C. “On lunch breaks, I'd purposely walk on the sunny side of the street, then come back to the office and immediately check my tan lines. During college in South Carolina, I scheduled my classes around prime sun hours. Oh, and I also paid $50 extra rent a month to live on the sunny side of the building, with a balcony,” she says.

Deep down, of course — beneath those toasty melanin cells — Katie and her fellow summertime tanners know better: They're well aware that this isn't the healthiest habit, that a tan is a sign of damage, that those new freckles aren't “cute.” Sunbathing is just the reward you give yourself for withstanding yet another punishing unflattering-puffer-coated winter and drizzling spring. “Women feel like it's OK to get sun for just a day or two, just on weekends,” says Francesca J. Fusco, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. “In their heads, they're healthy ten months a year, so they think they can have their fun during the summer.”

This seems especially true in colder climates. “Ever since I moved to L.A., I've realized people live in such fear of aging and skin cancer, with their big hats and daily SPF, to a degree that I never saw when I lived in New York,” says Sally, 37, a television producer.

The undulating pattern of sunbathing in the summer, going back to being pale in the winter, and sunbathing again could burn people in more ways than one. “Studies have shown that getting an occasional blistering sunburn can be more dangerous than having a steady tan with regard to the risk of melanoma, the most dangerous kind of skin cancer,” says Jody A. Levine, co-director of Plastic Surgery & Dermatology of NYC. But that's not a rationale for a permatan: The risks of basal-cell and squamous-cell carcinoma “are linked to cumulative UVB radiation — the more exposure, the greater the risk.” Although it has been reported in the Harvard Health Letter that the body tans as a form of protection against UV rays, dermatologists still insist that people use sunscreen. “A tan has an SPF of eight at best,” Levine says. “That's not even close to the 30 or 45 we recommend.”

Video   Get a guilt-free summer glow May 16: If you want to look like you just came from the beach but don't want to expose your skin to the sun's harmful rays, you might want to consider spray tanning, a healthy alternative to sunbathing. Today show

Perhaps one reason it's hard to fathom giving up tanning is that all summer long, people tell you how great you look — when they're not asking you if you've lost weight. “The simple answer to why I still lay out, knowing what I know, boils down to ‘Tan fat looks better than white fat,’” admits Sarah, a 38-year-old sales manager in Boston. That's the same dubious rationale that Jennifer, a 40-year-old cable-network executive in New York City, says her mother drilled into her head from an early age.

Which brings up another excuse tanners deploy: Sunbathing, sitting by the pool — it's a group event, maybe even a long-standing family tradition. For Jennifer, lying in the sun is inextricably linked to happy, sense-specific memories of sitting on the beach in South Carolina with “my mom and the ya-yas, gossiping, passing around magazines, and eating Cheez-Its and Pringles.”

Thus, tell an inveterate tanner that she can't bronze herself anymore, and she may well think she also can't spend time with the people she cares about. “As with smoking, tanning can be hard to give up because it can be a big social experience,” says Steven Feldman, professor of dermatology and public health at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Like nicotine, in fact, ultraviolet rays have been shown to be addictive, which isn't altogether surprising, since they've also been found to improve one's mood and sense of calm. A by-product of the chemical reaction that occurs when UV rays irradiate skin cells is the pleasurable release of endorphins in the brain, Feldman explains.

To prove that people become addicted to UV light, Feldman conducted a 2004 study in which, for one week, participants variously had sessions in two identical-looking, warm tanning beds: one that exposed them to UV rays and one that had a UV-blocking filter. The volunteers' moods were evaluated before and after each session, and they reported feeling more relaxed and at ease following the UV exposure. Moreover, at the end of the week, when given the choice of doing the session in just one of the beds, virtually all of the study subjects chose the one with UV, even though they weren't aware of the difference.

In a follow-up study, before exposure to the beds, participants took a low dose of a narcotic-blocking drug, Naltrexone — “what they use in emergency rooms if someone overdoses on heroin or morphine,” Feldman explains. Not only did frequent tanners show less interest in tanning, but half of them also exhibited common signs of withdrawal. “Nothing happened to the infrequent tanners,” Feldman says. “But the others got jittery and nauseated.”

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