We wouldn’t dare deliberately touch a red-hot burner. We’re not too eager to walk over hot coals.

Yet we don’t think twice about deliberately exposing white skin to equally dangerous ultraviolet rays — whether it’s a tanning booth or natural sunlight.

Two hundred years ago, white skin darkened by a tan indicated your social status.

When the West was being settled, the only women with tanned white skin were those who had to do manual labor.

Sophisticated, stylish ladies from the East wouldn’t dare allow the sun to darken their white skin.

Why are we obsessed with tanned skin when we are well aware prolonged exposure significantly increases the risk of skin cancer? For the same reason we still drink too much alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

Why is white skin shunned and ridiculed? We’re compelled to apologize for white skin during the summer.

During one of the first warm days in April, a television reporter was showing off his shorts to indicate how nice it was and actually apologized that his legs were so pasty white.

There is no excuse for pasty white skin anytime, proclaims the indoor tanning industry.

Tanning indoors has absolutely no harmful side effects, they claim — nor does tanning year round have the harmful side effects associated with natural sunlight.

That’s like claiming low tar cigarettes are less harmful to your lungs than normal tar.

We’ve all heard about the scientific evidence that proves overexposure to ultraviolet radiation increases our risk for skin cancer. Yet indoor tanning devices that emit ultraviolet rays have never been more popular.

The Skin Cancer Foundation states that “according to industry experts, 28 million Americans are tanning indoors annually at about 25,000 tanning salons around the country.”

Tanning is simply our bodies’ defense against the ultraviolet rays whether from natural sunlight or indoor tanning, right?

Wrong.

It’s more serious. Damage to our DNA must happen to create a tan in the first place.

Organized medicine has always frowned on indoor tanning just for cosmetic purposes. This criticism reached peak in 1994 when the American Medical Association adopted a resolution calling for a ban on the sale and use of tanning equipment for non-medical purposes.

However, the United States Federal Trade Commission, which regulates the sale and marketing (but not the use) of indoor tanning equipment, declined to institute such a ban.

Rather, it moved in the opposite direction, prohibiting the industry from marketing indoor tanning for any other purpose other than cosmetic. The tanning industry has since tried to promote what it calls the “health benefits” of indoor tanning.

More than a century of research initiated by P.G. Unna of Berlin (who published a report on the topic in 1894) demonstrates that the argument for such benefits is weak compared to the case for the risks of indoor tanning.

There is a causal role of the ultraviolet portion of the sun’s rays in the development of skin cancer.

We’ve all heard about the epidemic of skin cancer. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, physicians and other medical groups around the world have undertaken extensive campaigns to persuade people to abandon tanning salons and find shade during peak intensity hours.

Despite all these efforts, tanning both indoors and outdoors is more popular than ever.

Like smoking or excessive drinking, the development of skin cancer is a gradual process. You don’t experience any negative effects until the damage has already been done.

Ladies, we’re the primary target for the indoor tanning industry.

We’re most vulnerable to the lies.

We’re much more pressured to show off the social perception of “beautiful” color than think about the effects of our decisions 20 years from now.

Sadly, our culture places too much emphasis on superficial appearance.

Beware of the false claims from the tanning industry that may include “there’s no danger in overexposure or burning.” Or the myth that short, frequent spurts of indoor tanning prevents serious sunburns.

We have illusions that we’re invincible: We consider ourselves intelligent human beings, yet program ourselves for destruction.

No matter how much information we have about the harmful effects of overexposure to ultraviolet rays, smoking, drinking, or any other health issue, most of us are merely slaves to our comfortable, familiar habits.

To the minority who do make a consistent effort to maintain healthy lifestyles, you’ll probably be paying astronomical health insurance rates to compensate for the rest of us who have made dumb, selfish choices.