Senior high school students at Balmoral Hall School are encouraging their peers to go tan-free this year.
In a challenge put on by the Canadian Cancer Society, Grade 12 students will be signing up to educate their friends about the serious health risks associated with indoor tanning.
The Tan Free Grad Challenge will officially be launched this afternoon.
“Through the Tan Free Grad, students will be letting others in their school know that there is no safe way to get a tan,” said Kyra Moshtaghi-Nia of the Canadian Cancer Society. “The tanning industry would have you believe there is such thing as a healthy glow, but there is no such thing. Tanned skin is damaged skin, and tanning beds have been definitively proven to cause skin cancer.”
Melanoma skin cancer — the most deadly form of skin cancer, but also very preventable — is the third most common form of cancer for people between the ages of 15 and 29. Those who start using indoor tanning equipment before the age of 35 have a 59% increased risk of melanoma.
Colle?ge Jeanne-Sauve? won the Tan Free Grad Challenge last year with 63% of Grade 12 students pledging to be tan free for graduation.
