Pride and Prejudice

Whether or not you are an advocate of climate change, there can be no denying the unprecedented summer temperatures being recorded around the globe this year. In the UK, as an example, temperatures hit over 104°F for the first time since records began. Now, this may be the norm in some parts of the U.S. but bearing in mind the average UK summer temperatures range from 59°-77°F, it is easy to see why we struggled with such a surge in heat. And, unfortunately, air-conditioning is not a feature in the vast majority of British homes and places of work.

As temperatures rose, weather forecasts were predicting risk to life and for some unfathomable reason, this resulted in weather forecasters receiving unprecedented levels of abusive emails and trolling on social media. You can perhaps imagine the intense media focus on our mini-heatwave offering readers, viewers and listeners a plethora of “top tips” on how to beat the heat by looking after yourself and staying well. To say that government-issued guidance was stating the obvious is an understatement. For example: “Drink more fluids in the heat!”

One of the main messages, of course, was to stay out of the sun. Yet, social media was awash with comments and images of people showing their burns and red skin over-exposed to the sun, unfortunately often including laughing and “success” emojis as if this were a level of achievement! A sobering reminder, if we needed one, of the abject failure of the countless expensive consumer sun safety messages and campaigns that we have all been exposed to over the years.

Yet, it is another publicly-funded sun safety campaign that has been asked for in our Parliament, along with a ban on tanning beds as the answer to decreasing melanoma incidence levels. This is not a new lobby but it is one that, regardless of the facts presented to them, continually displays a woeful ignorance and shameful definitive stance on a complex and conflicting body of scientific evidence. And, of course, it could be argued that politicians are often predisposed to pontificating on subjects in which they have little to no experience.

 

Our salon staff are literally communicating messages of responsible behaviour with UV light all day, every day to millions of consumers.

 

However, the UK’s tanning bed industry is well organised with an excellent track record of presenting the facts and I have no doubt we will have the opportunity to do just this, as opposed to relying on the cherry-picked, flawed stories that are regularly regurgitated by our opponents. It will then be interesting to see how things really look once the disturbing lens of ridiculous, myopic anti-tanning scaremongers has been removed. Throughout the UK and Ireland, tanning bed production and their use in professional salons is well regulated, delivering a controlled exposure of UV light to tan and not burn, only allowing access to people who have no contra-indications to tanning. It is time for the anti-tanning lobby to realise that if they are genuinely concerned about people not burning, they do not need to be looking at the professional indoor tanning industry; they simply need to look up at the sky – with protective eyewear on, of course! Our industry knows so much more about responsible behaviour with UV light than the anti-tanning lobby does. Our salon staff are literally communicating this all day, every day to millions of consumers – one of the reasons, quite frankly, why I find it utterly ridiculous that the anti-tanning lobby maintains their position of disengagement. Pride before a fall comes to mind.