Kylie-Ayn Kennedy, 16, likes to get to the tanning parlor first thing in the morning. "The beds are cooler," explains the honor student in Easton, Pa. "By the end of the day, they're really hot when you get into them. After five minutes, you're sweating to death." So Kennedy, who has a summer job waitressing, likes to tan early--and often. Her favorite salon charges $6 a session or $40 for a month of unlimited use. "When I get my paycheck, I'll buy a month, and I'll go every day or every other day," she says. "I try to get in there as much as possible to get my money's worth."
Kennedy is one of the estimated 2.3 million teens who pop into a tanning parlor at least once a year, helping make indoor tanning what an industry trade group says is a $5 billion-a-year business. While many go only in the spring to get ready for the prom, more and more are seeking year-round "bronzitude," according to dermatologists, who are alarmed by the risks of so much exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. A survey of nearly 1,300 teenagers in Boston and Minneapolis--St. Paul, Minn., conducted in 2000 by researchers at Harvard and the University of Minnesota, found that 42% of girls had tried indoor tanning.
Easy access to insta-tans, doctors say, may be contributing to a frightening spike in skin-cancer rates among the young. The incidence of melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer, has doubled in the U.S. since 1975 among women ages 15 to 29. This year 2,050 of them are expected to be diagnosed with the malignancy. "Skin cancer used to be something old people got," says Dr. James Spencer, a clinical professor of dermatology at New York City's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "Not a month goes by that I don't see somebody in their 20s now. That was unheard of 10 years ago." Doctors worry about the long-term consequences of adolescent tanning. The World Health Organization estimated last week that up to 60,000 deaths worldwide are caused each year by excessive UV exposure and urged youths under 18 to steer clear of indoor tanning.
Concerned legislators around the U.S. have been looking for ways to enforce this recommendation. Last month New Jersey became the third state to prohibit children under 14 from using tanning parlors. New Hampshire and North Carolina require a doctor's consent for patrons in that age group, while Wisconsin has banned indoor tanning for anyone under 16. Many states require parents' permission for teenage customers. A bill requiring written consent for those under 18 is working its way through the legislature in Pennsylvania, which leads the nation in number of professional tanning salons, with an estimated 1,525.
But such measures may not do much to curb rotisserie-style teendom. For one thing, parents often give the go-ahead. It was Kennedy's stepmother who first took her to a tanning salon four years ago, and her aunt regularly accompanies her now. Likewise, her friend Sabrina Hendershot, 16, irradiates herself indoors a dozen times a year--with her mother's permission. "My mom doesn't really like that I do it," she says, "but she says it's O.K. as long as it's not all the time."