Britney Spears and Justin Bieber: Should They Be Tanning?

Cancer experts say that even a little bit of a tanning bed isn't necessarily a good thing

By Leslie Gornstein Mar 20, 2013 10:05 PMTags
Britney SpearsRS-Jack/X17online.com

Please tell me that Justin Bieber and Britney Spears used spray tans when they went tanning recently. Surely they wouldn't risk getting skin cancer!
—Eleven T., via Twitter

Spears did not use a spray tanner when she visited a salon near Los Angeles twice last week. She used a tanning bed that colors you up with—so the literature says—"minimal exposure to burning rays."

As for Bieber, he hit a tanning franchise in Paris during the French leg of his world tour. It's also unlikely that Bieber used spray tan; the franchise he visited, Point Soleil, is essentially an old-school Euro tanning salon. It offers tan booster products, but no spray tanning.

Do you see where I'm going with this answer?

Yep: We're talking cancer risk, all right.

The World Health Organization released a study saying that people under 30 who use tanning devices increase their lifetime risk of melanoma by 75 percent. (Spears is 31 whole years old, but, you know.)

To be fair, a Spears-type tanning session lasts only about 15 minutes. And the type of system she used leaves users with only minimum exposure to the most harmful type of light. But, says Dr. Suzanne Kim of the Oasis of Hope cancer treatment center, "still, the risk is not going to be zero."

Maybe being pale isn't such a bad way to go.