Why Talk About Sun Dangers? Exposure to the sun’s Ultra Violet radiation causes skin cancer and is highly preventable. When you spend more time in the sun without UV protection, your risk becomes higher for developing skin cancer. Melanoma is the least common, but most deadly and dangerous type of skin cancer.
This is the first full week in May. In my part of the world, we are rapidly nearing the hot part of summertime. May is the month the sun is getting closer to our part of the earth in its rotation toward hot out summer. This makes me aware of the dangers of sun exposure and how it can damage our skin.
Be Aware
As the mother of a family of fair skin people, we really have to pay attention. One of the things we find ourselves always doing is forgetting to pay attention to our time in the sun during these months. Awareness of how much sun we are getting is always a surprise. https://www.americanskin.org/resource/safety.php
This is the time of year for baseball practice. That is usually not so bad, as it is often after school for the players and work for the coaches. So practice is a fairly safe time. It is the games that are scheduled to start at 11:00 AM that get us. If we could start at 8:00 AM, so much safer for the kids skin health.
Enter Baseball Season
I don’t think that the coaches schedule at sunburn o’clock on purpose. They are just thinking about a little slower pace for a Saturday morning. I surely don’t blame them. In our part of the world, the little league coaches are all volunteers who are rising early for work every morning. They are busy dads and moms who want their kids to have a great baseball experience.
They played baseball with this same schedule. That is just what we did, and how the games were planned. Being out in the hot sun was just part of baseball life. We were not yet aware of the dangers of too much sun. Whoever heard of too much sun on the baseball field when you are learning to play baseball?
Sunglasses
Did you see kids playing little league in sunglasses when you were young? Me either, that would have been considered showboating! Now we are aware of the dangers of too much sun to our eyes. Like so many people of our time, we were kind of proud of the “sun lines” from too much sun during a game. It was kind of a mark of passage.
Actually, now we know that it was lack of information that led to the sun worship we all lived as we grew up. We just didn’t know that we could do better. In the summertime, we could treat ourselves better and protect our skin. There is a way to prevent sunburn, and we can do it. Protect Your Kids & Teens From Melanoma
Awareness
My family just like yours has become more aware of the importance of sun safety in the past few years. They are more careful with their families and themselves. We go to the ballpark and load a wagon with a popup tent to shade some seating area. We have coolers with lots of water for the family. Some extra to share with the players if needed.
Every youngster walking up has an insulated water bottle of some sort to help keep himself hydrated during game time. Everyone knows how important it is to have access to water. Even that is a relatively recent addition to successful ball playing. The more knowledgable approach to safety in the sun for our skin is much wiser.
We have become more aware of how to protect our families skin from the burning sun. Even with the danger that adds up with repeated exposure, we can reach middle age with healthier skin. Your skin can have less skin cancer.
Sun Blocking Clothing
Growing up on a cotton farm as I did there were things my folks did to protect themselves from the sun that was automatic. My dad wore long sleeved blue chambres shirts. Long khaki pants were his uniform. I, of course, thought he was ridged and old fashioned in his clothing choices.
He worked out in the weather summer and winter. Dad usually wore gloves and hats, caps and wide brimmed hats. Even though he worked out in the weather for 70 years, he did not ever go to a dermatologist for skin cancer before he passed at age 97. He did have to have cataract surgery at age 66. Had sunglasses been available for him at an earlier age, he may have escaped the eye surgery.
So, sun blocking clothing is not new. Protecting ourselves from the sun is not a new concept. We have just not been aware of how important it was.
As Australia and New Zealand are situated under a hole in the ozone, a very serious need arose sooner for them to have some words to describe protective clothing for their skin. A large portion of the immigrants to this part of the world down under were fair skinned and blonde. This high risk group had to have some help to protect their skin. Skin cancer cases were increasing.
The ozone has been slower to dissolve for us here in central Texas, but it is disappearing.
Enter UPF
Australians and New Zealanders were having to wear sun blocking clothing more, and the clothing makers responded with their worldwide technology.
Manufacturers in many countries were finding a market for their more stylish clothing that was a welcome change for the wearers. Clothing made with a UPF to protect their skin. Ultra Violet Protectant Factor has made wearing sun safe clothing more comfortable. We now have more stylish clothing available. We don’t have to wear my dad’s sun protection clothing.
This clothing still protects our skin and help block the dangerous UV rays, but is not how we prefer to present ourselves in today’s society.
When you add the technology that allows international internet shopping we can all be protected from the sun with lighter weight clothing. Had the need not been so great for those under the ozone hole, and the thinning of the layers of ozone here in the US over central Texas, we may not have been aware. My kids may have needed to wear the long sleeved work shirts their grandfather wore.
Now we can have the benefits of manufacturers worldwide to make taking care of our skin more comfortable.
The Harmful Effects Of Sun Exposure
The harmful effects of sun exposure start when you are young and build with each time you are in the sun just a bit too long. Freckles are not the only effects most of us would like to avoid. The early ageing of your skin makes you wonder why you stayed in the sun so long. Ask a 30-year-old sun worshiper.
Good attentive skincare can soften the effects of too much sun, but nothing can do away with overexposure. The sun is dangerous and the effects accumulate. When will you reach the end of your free passes? Will this time be the time you see the lines and dry dull skin?
You will need your sun-blocking hat, shirt, sunglasses and sunscreen. Limited exposure and staying in the shade out of the sun are important. We only have one life. Live it with Awareness.