Summer’s fast approaching and I know you’re all excited about putting on your favorite bikini and hitting the beach to swim, surf, and tan. Some of you might even have plans to visit a tanning salon to get what one of my friends calls “a base tan.” Although I don’t want to ruin your summer plans, I feel obligated to tell you that this is a very bad idea –– not the swimming and surfing, but the tanning.
It’s no secret that tanning is unhealthy and dangerous. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, tanning can damage healthy skin cells, cause premature aging of the skin, and, in extreme cases, lead to skin cancer. You don’t want to look 10 years older than you are, do you? And I know you don’t want to get skin cancer, which is also the number one most preventable type of cancer. In fact, preventing it is as easy as avoiding excessive sun exposure, putting on sunscreen every day (especially when you’re spending a lot of time outdoors), and avoiding tanning salons like the plague.
Yet despite these warnings, teen girls and boys continue to flock to tanning salons and beaches to perfect that “golden glow.” In an effort to curb this behavior Seventeen Magazine has partnered with dosomething.org and created the “No-Tan Pledge.” By signing it teens promise to protect their skin from harmful UVA/UVB rays by always wearing sunscreen, appreciating their natural skin tones, and giving up tanning beds. The Social Girls have already signed the pledge, and we think you should too!
Sign the pledge today—all it takes is one click.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The blog posts that I composed for socialgirls.com (the website itself no longer exists) were all written under pen names. In this case, I posted as “Taylor.” All of the work, however, is my own. I came up with the concept for each “cool thing of the day,” found a corresponding stock photo, and wrote the entire copy.
