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Recently, cancer experts at the World Health Organization indicated that tanning beds are at the top of the list of cancer causes, up there with lovely things like tobacco, mustard gas, and asbestos. Oh poor misunderstood mustard gas. Of course, most Americans have known for some time that sun-tanning is dangerous business. Read More
Oh dear...
I was all ready when I read the title of this to be thoroughly dissapointed by another gross TMT misreprentation. Then I was like, "Oh Clay writes for this site!"
Nice suit BTW!
Thanks Nathan. The jacket was
Thanks Nathan. The jacket was my wife's idea.
Interesting
This article was very interesting to say the least. Basically what I derived from this is if celebrities and the such associated themselves with healthier lifestyles as the 'in' thing to do, then doing so would not only better peoples health, but also their self esteem as well as psychologically 'cure' death. That would be a pretty sweet deal. Well written Dr. Routledge, I look forward to reading more in the future...
P.S. As an added note to go along with the article: In countries such as Thailand where skin tone is naturally dark, having pale skin is seen as beautiful and greatly desired by the public. So as far as psychologically curing death they seem to be on the right path.
re Interesting
Not to steal Clay's thunder, but...
Your point about Thailand, and more broadly shifting social contingencies of self-worth to affect health, is very interesting, and has been addressed by Clay and others in recent work.
In a series of studies, they found that priming people with "pale is pretty" (via Gwyneth Paltrow), in conjunction with a death prime reduced people's tanning intentions, whereas priming "bronze is beautiful" with death salience did the opposite. Other studies have found similar effects for other health behaviors based on what other people value.
This work stems from a broader model of health behavior that shows that, ironically, sometimes death primes REDUCE people's healthful behavior, such that commercials etc that say "you could die if you do this" could, after a brief time at least, INCREASE people doing that behavior if it is something essential to their self-worth (and I would add psychological structure and coherance).
Sunbed Use
Its good to see that there are some sensible people who recognise that with most things positive, there is also a negative. Its all about balance, like a balanced diet etc.
people need fair information to make a decision, not one that is biased by commercial enterprise, such as the huge fake tan companies who are behind much of the negative press on sunbeds recently.
For more information and advice visit http://www.tanslim.co.uk and http://www.sunbedsalon.co.uk and http://www.sunbedhire.co.uk
tanning and death
This is interesting, so if we tell people "Pale is beautiful" people who are thinking of death won't want to get a tan. Is thinking that being tan is a self esteem boost inherit in all people? I've never really thought about being tan as being beautiful. I'm assuming this is all subconscious behavior? Very interesting article. I guess the answer to this would be to have more superstars like Nicole Kidman.
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