4 ms·
They're both imitations of status symbols "wealthy people can stay inside while poor people work in the sun" vs. "wealthy people can vacation in sunny countrie
by tveita 9mo ago
They're both imitations of status symbols
"wealthy people can stay inside while poor people work in the sun" vs. "wealthy people can vacation in sunny countries while poor people stay home in the cold"
- mrits 9mo agoThe US has 200 million white people that live in a mostly warm and sunny climate. Women often tan before vacations or events so they look better in the pictures.
- Forgeties79 9mo agoMen (7.4%) and women (11.5%) both do it, but yes women in the US in larger numbers. Worth mentioning it’s still a substantial % of men. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5664932/#:~:text=9.5%25%20of%20adults%20were%20intentionally,(11.4%25%20vs%207.5%25). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5664932/#:~:text=9....
- mrits 9mo agoWhat do you think those numbers represent? Just so everyone is clear, it's still 12% when we are talking about females who frequently outdoor tan of all races with half the group over 45 years old in a tiny test group. Not exactly relevant
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Forgeties79 9mo agoYou are welcome to provide your own source equal in quality to the NIH’s research.
- mrits 9mo agoI doubt they'd appreciate you misrepresenting their research
- viking123 9mo agoI live in Asia and I think tanned white people do not look good at all most of the time, to me it just looks weird. I much prefer the pale look. People with naturally tan skin however I think look very good.
- echelon 9mo agoIt's 100% cultural. I think the pale look is super unattractive and ghostly/ghoulish. Tanned skin is beautiful. It's not that it is a sign of wealth due to leisure. People who work outdoors are tanned too. It's the warmness. The glowing. The gradients. Something impressed upon me at a young age that this is the standard of beauty. When I'm in Asia and I see people carrying umbrellas and doing skincare, their skin looks clinical and less appealing to me than those who aren't doing it. I logically know the anti-sun regime is healthier for their skin, but my primate brain tells me it's unattractive. It's unfortunate that increasing melanin production from the sun causes DNA damage. Because it looks so good to me. There are a variety of drugs that induce pigmentation or melanocyte production, but none are FDA approved. Most of them can lead to cancer, either by uncontrolled cell proliferation, impact on unrelated cell populations, or disrupting normal hormonal signalling. Melanotan-II was popular some years back, but there are half a dozen others that use a variety of different mechanisms. None of them are approved. It's unfortunate that we haven't developed something better than exposing ourselves to DNA damage, but it's probably not the biggest priority.
- temp0826 9mo agoI don't know if it's every Asian country, but Thailand absolutely has an obsession with skin whitening products (whiter skin is correlated with wealth/higher-class and not having to work outside). I found it hard to find a non-whitening lotion while there actually. I really doubt many of these products are safe and it looks very uncanny-valley and weird to me, which is maybe what you're picking up on as unattractive too. Definitely a cultural thing.
- viking123 9mo agoThe women look much much younger than western equivalents though because they avoid the sun. It's hard to look at western girls in twenties who look like they are in their mid 30s. However, the western girls who have used sunscreen tend to look super good with the original skin.
- janderson215 9mo agoPeople also tan before going on sunny vacations to get a “base” and prevent extreme burns. See: flights back to the Midwest from Miami after Spring Break.
- qmmmur 9mo agoSo deeply unscientific. All tanning is evidence of damage.