Health clubs utilize tanning beds to attract members despite cancer risk, recent study shows

I was driving past Planet Fitness on my way to my 10-year-old son’s gym class and had to laugh when I saw their sign advertising free pizza as part of a new-member promotion. I decided to utilize it as a teaching moment, explaining to my daughter why we should avoid junk food as a reward for exercise, one of many lectures she’s heard from her mother, a cancer researcher.

When I decided to take a closer look at what gyms were offering to entice people to sign up, pizza was the least of my worries. Many gyms offer access to tanning beds, known carcinogento their customers. We would be amazed if gyms provided tobacco to customers, so we need to ask stern questions of gyms that provide ultraviolet radiation.

Comparing tobacco and tanning beds may seem like an exaggeration, but it isn’t. Both are rated group 1 carcinogens AND tests show that we now have more cancer cases related to tanning beds than to tobacco.

Gyms support the tanning industry

To find out how common these tanning salon-gyms are, I asked my research assistant to call every Planet Fitness, Anytime Fitness, and Gold’s Gym in Massachusetts and Connecticut to find out how many of them had tanning beds. Of the 167 gyms we found on Google, 66 percent offer tanning beds to customers, with Planet Fitness being the biggest offender, with a whopping 100 percent of its franchises having tanning beds. Combined, these gyms have 408 tanning beds. Extrapolating this to all 50 states would mean that these three gym chains have more than 10,000 tanning beds nationwide. That’s the same as 1,600 tanning salons. The tanning industry must be thrilled.

The presence of tanning beds in gyms is even more shocking, which is a recent fact test showing that physically dynamic people have a greater risk of developing melanoma, a deadly type of skin cancer. Using a tanning bed is a major risk factor for melanoma, which is currently the third most common cancer in women under 49, a popular demographic at the gym. Why would we put a carcinogen in a facility frequented by people who are at increased risk for the cancers it causes?

I decided to do some research to find out more about the people using these tanning beds at the gym. We surveyed 636 people who had ever used a tanning bed and found that about a quarter of them had tanned at the gym. When I compared the group who tanned at the gym with the group who didn’t, I was surprised to find that the gym tanner was much more demanding. They were 67 percent more likely to utilize the tanning bed than other salon tanners and were much more likely to report being addicted to tanning. Gyms seem to be a great place for tanners to satisfy their need.

We also found in our sample of tanners that a greater tan was associated with more exercise. Now we can understand why gyms offer tanning beds – people who tan deeply love to exercise.

Challenging public health messages

We don’t know why tanning and exercise are linked, so I can only speculate. Both are driven by a desire to look and feel better. Regardless, gyms that offer tanning beds reinforce the idea that tanning is part of a skincare regimen, or perhaps even worse, that tanning is part of a well lifestyle. Tanning is neither. It will destroy your skin and has the potential to completely destroy your health. For decades public health campaigns They tried to dispel the common misconception that tanned skin is a sign of good health.

A tan is a sign that the body is receiving too much cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation. It’s a warning sign.

Gyms should not provide tanning beds to their clients. Removing tanning beds from gyms certainly won’t stop everyone from tanning, but it certainly isn’t an argument for making them convenient for those at higher than average risk of melanoma. By combining exercise with tanning beds, gyms are undermining public health messages and contributing to the cancer risk of their clients. If you’re joining a gym to be well, my advice is to choose one that supports you.