Is a Natural Tan always bad?

Answer 1

DETAILS - Please read, I can't find anything on Google this specific.

I live in Australia and I've always had the kind of skin that tans easily, though lately I've gotten paler and need to be more careful about burning. As a kid I was lightly burned once or twice - the kind that's a bit painful but doesn't peel and goes away in a day or so.

Usually if I burn it's gone by the next day (faded to a tan) and I'm pretty careful. I don't go around looking for a tan because I know it can cause cancer and I've tangled with that stuff before.

I've seen a lot of campaigns about tans always being dangerous, and some nonsense about getting it naturally from our diet.

From what I know in Childcare, a natural diet did not protect a lot of kids from developing vitamin D deficiency a few years ago. We keep an eye on the UV index and above a certain level we put sunscreen on their faces and arms and make sure they wear a hat and something that covers their shoulders - but it's the policy to leave their legs alone due to said deficiency problems we had when we slathered them.

My question is - because lots of people are born with naturally dark skin, and some people like me naturally tan even with sunscreen on (albeit a lot slower) it doesn't seem 100% accurate to say that tanned skin is always damaged.

Is that true for all skin types? Because it couldn't be true for people naturally born with black or brown skin. Do these studies take those people into account? Is this all fear mongering?

I'd like to know because being summertime, it's hard to avoid tanning just being out for a few minutes. It's not realistic to protect myself 100% because I am always going to be olive-skinned.

No matter what answer I get I'm still going to be careful, I'm not stupid. It's just during the summer I can be out for twenty minutes and get a tan, it is that quick.