Tanning makes an unfortunate comeback

Decades of warnings from skin and cancer doctors seem to fly right over the heads of teenage girls

- ROBIN ABCARIAN

JOE SOHM Visions of America / Universal Images Group via Getty Images TIKTOK has reintroduced a new generation to sunbathing and an obsession with the UV index.

WHAT IN THE actual Stage 4 melanoma is going on around here? "Auntie, look at my tan lines!" my 16-year-old niece commanded after spending a few hours at the beach the other day. Every day this summer, like a weather reporter, she announces the "UV index."

Initially, I assumed she was trying to avoid the worst part of the day for sun exposure. After all, in July 2020, when she was 10, she came home from Sinjin Smith's Beach Volleyball Camp in Santa Monica with a face so burned and blistered, she was in bed for two days. None of the counselors had reminded her to reapply her sunscreen.

She and her friends are now obsessed with the index, which they learned about on TikTok (where else?) because they want to get very tan, very fast.

This, in fact, is an egregious perversion of the index's purpose, which is an open-ended numerical scale, ranging from zero to 11 and up. The index does not measure heat. It measures radiation, and the intensity of skin-damaging ultraviolet rays. It is, basically, a sunburn meter. The higher it goes, the worse it is for your skin. An index number of 6 or higher is considered unsafe without protection, as it can cause skin damage and sunburn in less than 20 minutes. My niece gets excited when it's an 8, 9 or 10.