On the heels of my last post, showing supermodel Marissa Miller in just the skin she’s striving to protect from sun damage, Allure Magazine coincidentally polled readers on their tanning habits. In sync with about 72% of participants in a poll by American Academy of Dermatology,  results from a survey done by Emory University on on HotorNot.com showed most respondents feel that tanner just looks, well, sexier and, sadly, healthier.

Most distressing is still the lack of concern about the clear correlation between tanning and skin cancers, even when that risk is specifically explained. On ABCnews.com Dr. Audrey Kunin said:

It’s incredibly difficult to get someone not to do something that perceive as providing them with a positive perception. It was the same thing with smoking. Especially younger people have a hard time seeing themselves as getting older and having to deal with these risks. … “All of my younger melanoma patients, girls in their early twenties, have been tanning bed users,” says Kunin.  She tries to put things into perspective by pointing out that twenty minutes in a tanning bed is the same as an entire day on the beach with no sun block, but she says that until they have skin cancer, it’s hard to get people really to understand the risk.”

So what DOES resonate with young tanners?  Good old human vanity and fear of aging, according to the story in Allure:

In another recent study…[2/3rds] of women who saw the effects smoking would have on their faces vowed to give up their bad habit…as a direct consequence of seeing how their appearance will change.

Harvard Department of Dermatology’s Dr. Kristina Collins suggests the young person who is tanning addicted ask an older friend or relative, such as their mom or grandmother, to show them their sun-exposed forearm up against the more more sun-protected abdomen.  The arm skin will usually look much older compared to the skin on their stomach, and “the young people will usually be pretty surprised by what they see….freckles, age spots, poor skin tone” compared to the stomach skin, which can often look 30 years younger.  That, she says, may help them to redefine “what’s hot” — tanning and aging faster, or not.

The tan transition aid? Spray tans and other self-tanners…  And more celebrities coming out and taking a stand — naked or not! — about sun safety.