Indoor Tanning Bed

Indoor tanning bed use is a huge problem in the United States. Baker and colleagues reported back in 1990 that the number of tanning salons in the United States was as high as 200,000, there were 40,000 different places who manufactured tanning beds, and roughly 200,000 people had tanning beds in their home (Baker et al., 1990). This makes it easy for one to find a place to use an indoor tanning bed. The American Academy of Dermatology reported that 59% of college students have used a tanning bed at some point in their life, and that using a tanning bed before age 35 can increase a person’s risk of developing melanoma by 59% each time an indoor tanning bed is used (ADA, 2018). A majority of college students who use indoor tanning beds do

They were asked questions regarding attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, intentions and reported behavior related to tanning salon use. They were also given questions that asked about their appearance motivation, self-monitoring and health orientation. All of the responses were anonymous. To assess behavioral tendency, participants were asked how often they had used a tanning bed in the last year. In assessing the participants attitudes about indoor tanning bed use, they were asked “to indicate how agreeable/disagreeable, interesting/dull, stimulating/boring, pleasant/unpleasant, useful/useless, advantageous/disadvantageous, relaxing/not relaxing, attractive/unattractive, sexy/not sexy and not vain/vain tanning salon use is” (Hillhouse et al., 2000). The participants were asked if people who they considered important in their lives thought that they should use indoor tanning beds. This question was used to assess the participant’s normative perceptions. Perceived behavioral control was assessed by asking individuals how easy/hard it would be for them to access an indoor tanning bad. Using a five point Likert scale, appearance motivation was assessed by asking questions like “How I look is important to me”. This study concluded that the participants who had a more positive attitude, believed they were more in control of their use of indoor tanning beds, those with subjective norms that were also positive, were more likely to report the use of indoor tanning beds. From these findings, it can be suggested that an increase in perceived control will lead to a more positive attitude and the intention to tan will also increase. It was also found that 16% of indoor tanning bed users did so because they were motivated by their appearance (Hillhouse, et al., 2000).