YOUNGSTERS are risking their health by using sunbeds up to twice a DAY, says Girls Aloud star Nicola Roberts.

The pale beauty, now filming a BBC3 documentary called The Truth About Tanning, says teens are in the grips of a deadly epidemic in their bid to be bronzed.

MPs will soon vote to outlaw unsupervised booths, and yesterday MP Julie Morgan launched a Private Member’s Bill to ban salon sunbeds for under 18s. Health Secretary Andy Burnham gave the Government’s backing.

It follows a Sun campaign – backed by cancer charities and MPs Sian James and Julie Morgan – to ban unsupervised booths.

Nicola, 24, backs tighter rules on sunbeds.

Here she tells why.

I USED to be hugely insecure about being pale – if I didn’t have a tan I didn’t feel attractive. But I realise this was massively unhealthy.

We now have a responsibility to try to stop young men and women feeling they have to be tanned to look good – we don’t all have to be “Tangoed” to be beautiful.

I was shocked by some of the things I saw while filming my documentary. The need for a tan is an obsession. For many kids it’s compulsory in their everyday life. They visit a salon daily – if they miss a day they think they are pale. But they’re red raw.

I spoke to one 11-year-old girl who was able to go into an unsupervised tanning salon and basically lie there and burn.

I also met a 14-year-old who used a sunbed every single day – sometimes twice a day.

It’s just too much. We have to wake up to this problem. It is beyond belief that 11-year-old girls can visit unsupervised salons and lie there and fry. There has to be a law banning young people using these sunbeds.

The younger you are, the more fragile your skin. Use a sunbed when you’re young and you will be more at risk of developing cancer.

Most of the people I met with skin cancer for my documentary were in their thirties and forties. They started using sunbeds at 17 and are now having to have chunks of their body removed.

But today’s generation are using sunbeds years earlier. We’re going to see a generation developing skin cancer at younger and younger ages.

Parents need to be aware of the dangers. Twelve minutes on a sunbed may not seem much when a child is 14, but it will seem a lot when she’s dying of skin cancer in her twenties.

I’ve met people who are definitely obsessed and simply feel ugly when they’re pale. And it’s not just girls who are under pressure.

I met a boy who injects melanin into his skin every day to make himself brown, takes tanning pills, has spray tans three times a week, uses bronzer every day and uses a sunbed every day – sometimes twice a day.

We have to change the law regarding sunbeds, and we have to change the way society pressurises people to look tanned. You don’t have to have a tan to look attractive – it’s too high a price to pay.

Source: The Sun

this is shocking. yeah i do like a tan but its called the FAKE kind . not taking tablets , injecting myself or using sunbeds.

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