Sun Tanning: UV addiction decoded
updated the 24 June 2015 à 10:58Tanorexie – or tanning addiction is considered a disease. A new study looks at its causes.
Little is known about tanorexie, a disease that causes some people to use and abuse the sun and / or tanning booths to be the darkest possible (and completely burnt) without worrying about the consequences to their health . An American woman has recently hit the headlines when she insisted on sunbathing with a huge tumor that ate half of her face. No it is not stupidity but a psychiatric disorder (in some cases at least …).
According to two scientists from the Centre for Addiction Research at the University of Michigan*, 31% of those who regularly tan would have a form of the addiction and in 12% of them it is severe addiction. In reaching these conclusions, the researchers applied to tanning addiction the same criteria as those used for alcoholism or drug addiction.
Not surprisingly it is those who most regularly frequented UV beds (more than 9 times per month) who had the most severe forms of the addiction.
The most surprising result is probably that these people also frequently suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder (a self-image disorder). Hence the question: Is the addiction to tanning not the consequence of the untreated disease, but more like a kind of compensation for reassurance to feel better about one’s body?
Stay tuned.
* Study published in The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
Maureen Diament
