Why Is a Younger Generation Embracing Tanning?

Spend enough time outside and you might find yourself with a suntan. Spend too much time outside and you might wind up with a sunburn. From the perspective of scientific experts, neither of these is preferable. “There is no such thing as a safe tan,” the FDA stated on its website in 2023. “The increase in skin pigment, called melanin, which causes the tan color change in your skin is a sign of damage.”

Seems like a settled matter, right? And yet people are still going in search of the perfect tan — especially if they’re part of Generation Z. That, at least, is one of the big takeaways from reporting at The Guardian by Lucy Knight. Among other data, Knight cites the results of a 2024 survey from the group Melanoma Focus that found that, of the 18-to-25-year-olds surveyed, 42.63% of them had used tanning beds.

Knight’s reporting focuses on a number of people under the age of 30 who are well aware of the health risks of tanning, but opt to do it anyway. One even optimizes their schedule so that they can sunbathe when UV rays are at their highest. Why are these people doing it? For some, Knight writes, it’s about the allure of influencers; for others, it’s a sense that life is short, so why not seek to look your best?

And while there are plenty of ways to get a tan without increasing your risk of skin cancer — the Canadian Cancer Society recommends safely using self-tanning products — some of the people cited in The Guardian‘s reporting preferred the luxurious implications of tanning in the sun.

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It’s worth emphasizing that tanning outdoors or in a tanning bed poses a serious health risk. Dermatologist Dr. Patricia Farris told the New York Times that the rise of tanning beds led to an uptick in health issues. “[D]ermatologists began seeing younger and younger patients with skin cancers and particularly melanoma,” Dr. Farris told the Times. Is history about to repeat itself?

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…