Tanning addiction common among students

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- A study at a large U.S. university found more than 25 percent reported symptoms of tanning dependence with symptoms similar to alcohol and drug dependence.

The study, published in the September/October issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior, also found those with a tanning dependence are more likely to be thin and to smoke cigarettes than others.

Carolyn Heckman of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and colleagues recruited 400 students and other volunteers at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond during the spring semester of 2006. Participants took part in an online survey used to measure traditional substance abuse and dependence. The measures assess tolerance to tanning, or the need to tan increasingly frequently; withdrawal from tanning, or discomfort when not having tanned recently and difficulty controlling the behavior despite awareness of its negative impact such as freckles, wrinkles, pre-cancerous lesions, etc.

"We were surprised to find that 27 percent of those we surveyed were classified as tanning dependent," Heckman said in a statement. "The finding that almost 40 percent of those surveyed had used tanning booths and that the mean age when tanning booths were first used was 17 is also alarming."