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Amanda Butterfield reporting Addicted to tanning; when going to a tanning beds becomes more than just getting a healthy glow. It's dangerous, and it's affecting girls as young as 12 years old.
We talked to a South Jordan teenager who is still recovering from what doctors are calling tanorexia.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "If I could sleep in a tanning bed all night long it would be heaven."
Becca Brown used to be really, really brown.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "I just started tanning because we had a Homecoming coming up, and like every girl you wanna go tanning and look good in your dress."
Then she got a job at a tanning salon, so it was free. She was going every single day.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "I've never had a hard time with drugs or anything, but if you give me tanning bed it's completely different story."
Sure, Becca liked how she looked after tanning, but more so how she felt.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "Whenever I'd go I was happy, it was stress free, it made me fell really good."
Becca was addicted. A lot of other teenagers girls are too.
Laurence Meyer/Dermatologist: "We've begun to study behavior of these tanners with the same questions we'd use for alcohol dependency or gambling dependency."
It's that serious. It's also serious because excessive tanning damages skin by causing premature aging, deep wrinkles and cancer.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "People were like, you're going to get cancer, and I was like no, I'm fine."
Laurence Meyer/Dermatologist: "Indoor tanning causes all of the major skin cancers including melanoma, the deadliest."
Doctor Meyers showed us a study done in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that finds 50 percent of young women use artificial tanning booths. Some go three, four, five times a week. In extreme cases: twice a day.
Laurence Meyer/Dermatologist: "That's what leads to the term tanorexic or tanaholic."
And it's mostly girls, as young as 12, who get addicted. Researchers haven't completely figured why, but Becca can tell you.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "It made me happy whenever I'd go."
Anita/Lime Light Tanning Salon: "It's very relaxing, gives you sun endorphins like vitamin D, helps with acne."
That's what the manager at Lime Light Tanning, right down the street from West High School, says is a big draw. But she also adds, not all teens get addicted.
Anita Lime Light Tanning Salon: "A lot of girls worried about appearance, wrinkles, looking too tan."
It took Becca about a year of daily tanning to realize it was changing her skin.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "I noticed my skin was looking older, not healthy, and was like I don't want to be old and gross."
She tried to stop, but got depressed and was sneaking away from the house to tan. Even still she gets that craving for it.
Becca Brown/Recovering Tanorexic: "I'll drive by a tanning salon and I want to go tanning, I crave it, it's not just a want, a crave.
Just like a recovering drug or alcohol or gambling addict, Becca knows she'll probably fight it for the rest of her life.
Becca has quit her job at the tanning salon. She hasn't been tanning since April.
