2.The risks… - The sun and sunburn naturally

Back in the days when people were taking their first ‘sunshine vacations’, the rich and famous – movie stars, fashion designers and the like – were making it increasingly fashionable to slowly bake yourself to a golden brown courtesy of the sun, and the browner you were, the more of a status symbol it was.

A deep, rich sun tan was accepted far and wide as a sign that you had money, and lots of it. After all, you were only going to get a tan like that if you could afford to take lots of time off to go somewhere exotic and expensive for a lengthy period of time because a week on the beach after a relatively short haul flight wasn’t going to cut it.

And as for sunbeds and the subsequent tanning booth revolution, well, what were they?

In those days, they were the ‘secret’ that most people didn’t know about the ‘tans of the stars’, something that only the rich and famous could even contemplate indulging themselves in.

Hence, when sunbeds became available to the general public in the 80’s and 90’s through the explosion of ‘health clubs’ (the irony!), sun bed centers and solariums, it was no surprise that people flocked to them to get themselves baked to a golden brown on the cheap.

The sunbed ‘revolution’ enabled every man, woman and child (and yes, there were millions of children using sunbeds on a regular basis, at least in the UK) to get the exact same color as their favorite celebrities at a fraction of the price, and after all, who doesn’t want to look healthy?

And that’s the biggest mistake right there.

Having spent centuries avoiding the direct rays of the sun because men and women intrinsically knew that seeing your skin go red and then brown could not be an entirely healthy thing, the picture was suddenly reversed.

All of a sudden, exposing as much of your body as possible to the ultraviolet rays of the sun was immensely beneficial and health giving, a viewpoint that represented the exact opposite of that adopted by the Victorians and every generation before them.

There are now millions of people all over the world who are learning that listening to previous generations might have been a very good idea.

Now we know that whilst sunshine is essential for all life on Earth, it does not necessarily follow that lying out in the sun for hours on end is going to do you any good in respect of your long-term health.

Spending hours exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun in an attempt to acquire a ‘nice tan’ is not necessarily good for you because the evidence about the most of serious effects of over exposure to ultraviolet light make the picture all too alarmingly clear.

There is now plenty to suggest that prolonged exposure to sunlight and to the ultraviolet rays it bombards your skin with is a very bad thing for your health, although it is only fair to say that there are people on the other side of the debate who maintain that exposure to the sun is more good for you than bad.

So that you are in a position to make an informed decision in this debate, let us consider both sides of the argument.