By Oscar Parry
This January marked the 10-year anniversary since the banning of commercial solarium beds across Australia.
Despite this ban, Cancer Council Victoria reports that a large number of Australians are still taking part in dangerous tanning trends – with these trends affecting young Australians, including young women.
According to the Cancer Council, skin cancer has maintained its place as the state’s fifth most common cancer, with more than 3000 Victorians diagnosed with melanoma in 2023.
Cancer Council Victoria SunSmart program head Emma Glassenbury said the organisation is aware of harmful social media trends emerging recently, such as glamorising tan lines.
“We’re seeing harmful beauty norms glamorising tanning and we know this impacts women,” Ms Glassenbury said.
“We’re deeply concerned to see trends on social media emerging with young people showing off tan lines and using the UV index as a tanning tool rather than a warning … people should use the UV index to know when they should be using sun protection.
“These trends are really fuelling harmful attitudes towards sun tanning, particularly among young women, and increasing lifetime risk of skin cancer.”
Ms Glassenbury said most young Australians believe their risk of getting skin cancer is low and almost one in three young Australians believe that it’s safe to sun tan at their age.
“Young people are really susceptible to the social media messages, and it’s irresponsible for these platforms to be hosting misleading and dangerous content glamorising tanning – which is actually increasing skin cancer risk,” she said.
Cancer Council Australia started a federal government-backed campaign to counteract harmful social media trends around sun tanning behaviours, titled End The Trend.
“This campaign is targeting young Australians and really promoting through social media platforms and … influencers to end tanning trends … highlighting that UV damage can occur just in 15 minutes to your skin,” Ms Glassenbury said.
Along with UV exposure increasing your risk of skin cancer, she said that it is also the cause of 80 per cent of premature ageing, causing wrinkles and sun spots.
Ms Glassenbury said a tan is the result of melanin production after skin is exposed to UV radiation, which is produced by the body as a way of protecting the skin, and is a sign of skin damage.
“We really want people to embrace their own natural skin tone … and to to use all five forms of sun protection whenever the [UV index rating] is three and above,” she said.
Ms Glassenbury said it is important to use all five forms of sun protection, which are wearing skin-protective clothing, using PF50+ broad-spectrum sunscreen, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, seeking shade, and wearing sunglasses.
