Tanorexia: when tanning becomes an obsession

Some people take their obsession with tanning to the limit.

The aspects of life in which we humans are prone to lose control of our actions and perceive ourselves in a deceptive way are as varied as our different cultures are complex. Anorexia, bulimia or even orthorexia are examples of this, but these episodes are not limited only to areas related to food. Today, there is also tanorexiaa psychological condition in which the person looks excessively pale and devotes great effort to trying to get a tan, overlooking or underestimating the costs that this may have.

As in the case of orthorexia, tanorexia is not a theoretical construct that enjoys wide recognition in the scientific community.The phenomenon of sunbathing, in part because of its novelty and the lack of studies focused on this phenomenon. However, it can be understood as a type of culturally mediated addiction in which the person experiences a loss of control over the time spent sunbathing or using alternative methods of tanning.

The Cultural Root of Tanning Addiction

Although some studies suggest that behind tanorexia are abnormal biochemical patterns that occur in the nervous and endocrine system of the person experiencing this addiction, we must talk about the cultural elements that make its existence possible. It would have been difficult for tanorexia to exist in a historical context in which most of the population was dedicated to agriculture in order to barely survive and the canons of beauty tended towards pallor, but today the situation is very different.

Thus, the causes of the existence of tanorexia are supported in part by a change in these canons of beauty. change in these canons of beauty. In today's Western countries, a good tan denotes youth and wealth, something desirable and worth to be externalized.

The reasons could have something to do with the fact that today's poor population is often employed for long hours in large industrial compounds, far from sunlight, as the fields have been replaced by factories. Therefore, the white population that shows evenly tanned skin is the one that has time to go out to places of leisure during daylight hours, goes to the beachThey go to the beach, go swimming or are fond of hiking and traveling.

In addition, in certain areas of the body it is more difficult to detect wrinkles and skin imperfections when the complexion has acquired a darker tone, which would make tanning a good ally to hide the signs of aging.

The risks

The dangers of tanorexia are obvious. Excessive exposure to sunlight carries serious risks to the health of both our skin and, by extension, the other tissues of our body.. Ultraviolet radiation can cause Cancer in some cases, but in almost all cases it is equivalent to a worsening of the quality of the skin over time.

Moreover, as in any other addiction, tanorexia could feed back on cyclical habits that are not very adaptive and generate stress and social problems. Thus, a person may learn to try to reduce the high levels of anxiety produced by this problem by exposing himself or herself to more ultraviolet radiation, until a point is reached where this habit totally escapes the person's voluntary attempts to control the situation.

Symptoms of tanorexia

Some of the symptoms associated with tanning addiction are:

• Anxiety related to the way of perceiving one's own degree of tanning.

• Constant comparison between one's own degree of tanning and that of other people, whatever the latter may be.

• The person tends to perceive their skin as if it were much lighter than it is.