Study: Tanned Skin Desirable Despite UV Risks

Despite the growing awareness of the dangers of UV exposure, women still want to have tan skin.

Researchers at set out to find out how many women use sunless tanning products and how it affects the time they spend in the sun.

Of the 415 women that participated in the study, 48-percent reported they had used a sunless tanning products.

Seventy-percent had tanned in the sun within the past year and 36.8-percent said they stopped tanning in the sun as frequently because they use sunless tanning products.

Just over 92-percent of the women said that tanned skin is more attractive than natural skin colors and 79.2-percent said they feel better about themselves when they are tan.

“For many years, the perception that tanned skin is more attractive has influenced people to tan in the sun, leading to an increase in UV radiation exposure and skin cancer,” Suephy Chen, the lead investigator on the study and associate professor in the Department of Dermatology at Emory, said in a statement. “Our goals in this study were to assess the effect of sunless tanning products on tanning habits and to ascertain reasons for using or not using sunless tanning products.”

The study was published earlier this month in Archives of Dermatology, a monthly professional medical journal published by the American Medical Association.