Original article
Watching reality television beauty shows is associated with tanning lamp use and outdoor tanning among college students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2012.09.055Get rights and content

Background

Ultraviolet radiation exposure through natural sunlight or tanning lamps is a risk factor for skin cancer.

Objective

As the media can influence behavior, we studied whether watching reality television (TV) beauty shows is associated with tanning lamp use or outdoor tanning.

Methods

College students (n = 576) were surveyed on their reality TV beauty show watching, their use of tanning lamps, and outdoor tanning behavior. We asked media attitude questions about connectivity with reality TV shows and Internet use of Facebook to discuss reality TV shows.

Results

Those who did versus did not watch reality TV beauty shows used tanning lamps (12.9% vs 3.7%, P < .001) and tanned outdoors (43.3% vs 28.7%, P < .001) at significantly greater percentages. Significant predictors of tanning lamp use included watching reality TV beauty shows (odds ratio [OR] 2.58, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.11-6.00), increasing age (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.04-1.32), and female sex (OR 10.16, 95% CI 3.29-31.41). Significant predictors of outdoor tanning included watching reality TV beauty shows (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.33-3.34).

Limitations

The specific names of the reality TV beauty shows watched were not obtained and therefore we cannot determine if particular shows were more or less associated with this behavior.

Conclusion

Watching reality TV beauty shows is associated with both tanning lamp use and outdoor tanning. Dermatologists should consider discussing the potential harmful aspects of tanning beds and outdoor tanning, especially with their patients who watch reality TV beauty shows.

Section snippets

Participants

We approached 642 college students at an inner-city college in Brooklyn, NY, to complete the survey. Of those approached, 22 refused to complete the survey and 15 invalid surveys were returned. The response rate of 94.2% was computed from the 605 surveys that were completed correctly [(605/642) * 100%]. To allow for a more consistent young adult sample, we excluded from the analyses 23 individuals older than 35 years and 4 individuals who did not provide age data. We also excluded 2 individuals

Results

Table I shows the characteristics for the variables. The mean age of the participants was almost 23 years. There was an approximately equal percent of men and women. More than half of the sample was of non-white race/ethnicity. Each of the parasocial subscales on the Audience-Persona Interaction Scale and the Motive Social Learning Scale had average scores indicating disagree. The Perceived Realism Scale had an average score indicating rarely. The Facebook Scale had an average score indicating

Discussion

This study found that those who did versus did not watch reality TV beauty shows used tanning lamps and tanned outdoors at significantly greater percentages. These results remained constant even after adjusting for relevant covariates. Also, with regard to tanning lamp use, increasing age and female sex were significantly associated with greater odds whereas Hispanic, Asian, or other race/ethnicity were each significantly associated with lesser odds. With regard to outdoor tanning, black,

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      Citation Excerpt :

      Prevalence of all types of tanning was higher among females in all studies reviewed; however, two studies reported male ever IT rates to be 54% (88/163) and 18% (33/181) (Dennis and Lowe, 2013; Neenan et al., 2012). Of the 23 studies included in the review, nine were conducted in the Northeast (Banerjee et al., 2012; Banerjee et al., 2014; Basch et al., 2012; Fogel and Krausz, 2013; Gillen, 2015; Heckman et al., 2012; Heckman et al., 2014; Heckman et al., 2015; Rodgers et al., 2015), six in the Midwest (Ashrafioun and Bonar, 2014; Brewer et al., 2015; Carcioppolo et al., 2017; Dennis and Lowe, 2013; Hemrich et al., 2014; Russo et al., 2012), six in the South/Southeast (Dunn, 2014; Neenan et al., 2012; Noar et al., 2014; Seidenberg et al., 2016; Yoo and Hur, 2014; Yoo and Kim, 2013), and one in both the Northeast and Southeast (Stapleton et al., 2013). One study did not report regional information (Dwyer et al., 2015).

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    Funding sources: None.

    Conflicts of interest: None declared.

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