Tanning beds increase cancer risk, no matter what TikTok tells you | Sali Hughes on beauty

My reaction to people who tell me they “need a quick sunbed” is, I suppose, similar to the reaction you might get from Chris Packham admitting he’s been on a fox hunt. I detest these things and think they should be banned here (as they are in Australia, Brazil and Iran).

I thought commercial tanning beds were going out of fashion, but new research conducted by tanning brand Vita Liberata for their Not the Way to Glow campaign shows there’s still a lot to be done.

One in three British women surveyed used sunbeds, while 91% of that third claimed to understand the risk of UV exposure, namely: a significantly increased chance of developing skin cancer, including melanoma – the deadliest form.

The World Health Organization classifies indoor tanning beds as dangerous as asbestos and cigarettes, with those who used a sunbed just once have a 20% higher chance of developing melanoma than someone who hasn’t. Those who first use a tanning bed before the age of 35 increase that figure to a shocking 59%. Tanning beds are also a known cause of basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomasboth more common than melanoma and fatal.

Commercial tanning beds are deathbeds, and their cheerful presence in tanning salons on the British high street (there are an estimated 5,500) legitimises them – especially among the young. Despite the fact that tanning beds have been restricted to over-18s in the UK for 12 years, they are a huge draw on TikTok, with 65.5 million views for the hashtag #tanningsalon alone.

Kim Kardashian posts from her home solarium. And TikTok is full of misinformation on the topic. In fact, tanning for a vacation does not help prepare your skin for the sun; tanning beds produce very little vitamin D; they are a poor and risky way to treat conditions such as psoriasis and eczema (they can even make them worse over time). The medical UV treatment is used by dermatologists for these conditions and covering moles with a bandage or pimple patch before going to the tanning bed is about just as effective as a chocolate fire screen.

There are calls to force TikTok to run disinformation banners, as social media platforms (eventually) did with Covid-19. But given the speed, variety, and volume of skin health discussions on TikTok, you might not know where to begin or end.