By Meagan Lynch

ALBANY, NY May 1— The idea of perfect health in our society has become confused with fitness gyms enabling the movement from a fitness machine building muscle to a tanning machine building cancer.  Despite laws regulating tanning and increased knowledge of the negative outcomes of tanning, the industry has only grown in recent years, becoming a $2 billion dollar industry in the United States.  A physical fitness gym that is designed to help improve physical fitness has fallen into the mainstream, because they too sell tanning sessions that can be deadly. 

Many high school and college campuses are filled with tan students year round, even in the winter months.  These students in fact are tan and many can not use the excuse that they went on vacation, but in reality could probably give the answer I walked down the street to my tanning salon or I went tanning after my workout.  “Tanning has become such a popular thing to do because there are so many local places to tan,” says Jamie Johnson a student at The College of Saint Rose.  Since our culture and media put such an emphasis on what healthy looks like, it’s no wonder the local gym now has it all.  The increase in artificial tanning salons are on a major rise, not only in their own salons, but also in many gyms across the nation. 

There are many gyms around the area that partake in this tanning sensation.  Some of them are Gold’s Gym, Best Fitness and Planet Fitness.  In fact, tanning packages are sometimes included with their fitness packages.

Approximately one million people who go to their local tanning salon in an attempt to get a “safe tan” face the same risk as the people who lay out in the sun according to the Journal of Dermatology.  Suntan salon exposure produces cell damage in the skin -- the type of damage that potentially can lead to skin cancer, including melanoma, basal cell and squamous cell cancer.  The more times a person exposes themselves to a tanning bed the greater the chances are that an individual’s skin may not be able to perfectly correct the damage done, making tanning increase the risk of cancer.   If this is a known fact then it certainly is questionable as to why gyms that are supposed to make us healthier are really giving us a way to damage ourselves.

Although there have been advancements made to regulate tanning, not every salon abides by those rules.  Customers realize there are risks with the overuse and abuse of tanning and some worry about the possibility of getting skin cancer, however there are no notices posted in some salons about the risks attached to tanning and cancer says Shannon Stuto, an employee of Miami Sun Tanning Salon in Albany. Although there is a limit to how long a person can tan, there is not a limit to how many days in a row they can tan.   Stuto says that the main reason her customers go tanning is for a base coat before vacation, prom, or just to get color. 

Although there may not be a notice posted about the risk of cancer, in order to tan at Sunsations and Health Plex in Clifton Park anyone under the age of 17 needs parental consent, says Carrie Traynor a physical fitness trainer there.  Since 2003, 19 states have passed laws restricting access to tanning salons for people under the age of 18, one of these states being New York.

There are ways to find out about the relation with artificial tanning and cancer.  The Journal of American Academy of Dermatology posted a website in May of 2004 showing how the risk of cancer can be increased with any kind of tanning.  The article states that the more and more times a person exposes themselves to a tanning bed the greater the chances are that the individual’s skin may not be able to perfectly correct the damage done – making tanning increase the risk of cancer.

             Tanning can give an individual the bronzed healthy look for a short time, however, it can also give them long term consequences and possibly the diagnosis of cancer.  Tanning salons and tanning in gyms won’t stop because of the possible damage they are doing to their customers when they are gaining a profit, even if it means that their clients are gaining a deadly disease.