Topic
When one thinks of a tanning bed what comes to mind? A nice, glowing tan? A warm place to escape and relax? Or hazardous health risks? This could all vary. I want to find out what people think of tanning beds. If they do use them, why. And where did they come from in the first place. And also how they work. How do light bulbs darken your skin? To figure out such things I made up a survey for tanning bed users to fill out. The rest I did research to find my answers.
Background
So where exactly did the concept of a tanning bed come from? The first idea of a tanning bed came from a German scientist known as Friedrich Wolff. “Wolff decided to use artificially produced indoor tanning UV light to study athletes and how they might benefit from more exposure to sunlight. During his studies, he noticed an interesting side effect on the athletes - the golden glow of a healthy tan.” (Indoor) During that time, using a tan as a fashion statement was steadily increasing. Wolff accidentally used his knowledge of science to create the very first indoor tanning beds, thus a whole new industry was born. During the eighties was when more public tanning studios and salons began to appear. They quickly became highly popular. Customers were happy to find that with just a few sessions inside a tanning bed, they could establish a base tan. Even more exciting was that a few more trips would only enhance this golden bronze look. The number of tanning salons slowly increased through out the eighties and nineties. But as the nineties came to a close, the world entered the new millennium. Tanning salons quickly became a growth industry that still remains strong today. New technology advances in tanning beds and booths have only increased the strong demand for them in he United States.
But how exactly do tanning beds work? In every tanning bed there are a serious of bulbs, or lamps, that emit Ultraviolet radiation. There are two types of UV radiation, UVA and UVB. However,...