Tanorexia: when being brown becomes an obsession
The aspects of life in which human beings are prone to lose control of our actions and perceiving ourselves in a deceptive way are as varied as complex are our different cultures. 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 the tanorexia, a psychological condition in which the person looks excessively pale and spends great efforts trying to tan, overlooking or underestimating the costs that this may have.
As in the case of orthorexia, tanorexia is not a theoretical construct that is widely recognized in the scientific community, partly because of its novelty and because of the lack of studies focused on this phenomenon. However, it can be understood as a type of addiction mediated by the culture in which the person experiences a loss of control in the time you spend sunbathing or using alternative tanning methods.
The cultural root of tanning addiction
Although some studies suggest that biochemical patterns are behind tanorexia abnormalities that occur in the nervous and endocrine system of those who experience this addiction, we must talk about the
cultural elements that make their existence possible. Tanorexia could hardly exist in a historical context in which most of the population was engaged in agriculture 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. In western countries today, a good tan denotes youth and wealth, something desirable and worth showing.
The reasons could have something to do with the fact that today the poor population is usually employed during many hours in large industrial premises, away from sunlight, as the fields have been replaced by factories. Therefore, the white population that shows uniformly tanned skin is the one that has time to go out to places of leisure during daylight hours, goes 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 turn the tan into 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 rest of the tissues of our body.. Ultraviolet radiation can cause cancer in some cases, but in most cases it is equivalent to a deterioration in the quality of the skin over time.
In addition, as in any other addiction, tanorexia could be fed back from cyclical habits that are not very adaptive and generate stress and social problems. In this way, a person could learn to try to reduce the high levels of anxiety produced by this problem by exposing himself to more ultraviolet radiation, to a point where this habit totally escapes the voluntary attempts of the person to control the situation.
Symptoms of tanorexia
Some of the symptoms associated with tanning addiction are:
Alert state Continuously related to the degree of tan that is preserved.
Anxiety related to the way you perceive your own degree of tan.
Constant comparison between your own degree of tanning and that of other people, whatever the latter may be.
The person tends to perceive her skin as much lighter than it is.
