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Addicted To Indoor Tanning?

According to the Archives of Dermatology, there are people who are addicted to indoor tanning. That journal reported on a study of 421 university students in the northeastern United States. Using self-reported questionnaires, they screened for alcoholism and substance use as well as anxiety and depression. They also had a questionnaire about addiction to indoor tanning.

If you’re scratching your head (as I was), there’s a medically-accepted criteria known as CAGE (cut down, annoyed, guilty, eye-opener) that correlates with addiction, so they used this for “addiction” to indoor tanning also. They found that more of the kids who met the criteria for addiction to indoor tanning also had greater anxiety, greater use of alcohol, marijuana and other substances.

Depression didn’t seem to go with the tanners or the non-tanners. The researchers concluded that students who are addicted to indoor tanning may also have other addictions and psychologic disturbances.

My two cents worth is that this is a pretty absurd study and I wonder who funded it. I’ve never met anyone who’s addicted to indoor tanning, nor have I known anyone with anxiety or a substance abuse problem who simply must be tan! Do some researchers have too much funding and idle time on their hands?

Should we call this “George Hamilton Syndrome?”

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*


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