25-doesn't-care-and-just-wants-to-look-good articles. This article ("Playing with fire: Young sun worshippers continue to flirt with cancers") in the Ithaca Journal is one of the better ones. Below are some excerpts.
What compels people -- especially when the American Cancer Society says that one in five Americans will develop some form of skin cancer during their lifetime -- to defy the odds and bare their skin to the possible source of that disease?
"I do worry about it being a risk, but it (sunbathing) relaxes me," says Krystin Maloney, a 19-year-old freshman from Ann Arbor, Mich.
She's in a bikini, reading on a lounge chair. No sunglasses or hat. But she says she has applied sunscreen. Maloney is concerned more about her appearance than the risks of tanning. "I don't like being pale. I feel it (a tan) makes me look healthier," Maloney says.
I've got to start taking exception with quotes like the above that insinuate that pale skin is ugly and that tan people are more attractive. I don't know where they get this impression. You can't totally blame the media for this one. There are plenty of examples in the media of attractive models and actresses that are pale. Haven't these people seen Nicole Kidman Or Scarlett Johanssen?? I wouldn't say that neither one of them have much of tan but they are beautiful and successful actresses.
Jacky Sims, a 17-year-old high school student who had two melanomas removed, no longer sees tans as beautiful:
For Sims, a tan is ugly.
Sims says she knows why people her age dismiss the warnings.
"We think we're invincible and that it's not going to happen to us," she says. "We think skin cancer is not really serious. You can just cut it out."
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