Ew I need to go Tanning.

Tanning. In recent years the hype surrounding being tan, and the measures people, especially teenage females are going through to achieve the "perfect tan" have drastically increased. Its not just lying out in the sun anymore, there is now tanning beds, spray tans, airbrush kits, and many other products woman (and some men) use to achieve darker skin tones. So the question comes in, when did it become such a common praxis and cultural norm to associate tanning with beauty. It is just another example of pursuit without terminas, and humans endless fluctuating idea of what will make them more appealing and attractive. In previous centuries woman would spend days inside just to preserve their flawless pale complection, symbolizing their class in society, and the fact that their skin never saw the sun because they did not need to work. Paleness represented beauty and class. Since the 1980s, girls now spend hours lying in uv-ray beds, while their skin cells are penetrated by radiation, causing permanent skin damage. But to many people its worth it because it is just another body practice used to make them more attractive. Tan skin has become a symbol of health, activity, and fitness. Pale is now seen as sickly and unhealthy when in reality overexposure to UV rays is proven to sky rocket your chance of developing skin cancer. So when did this giant shift in body practices take place? What triggered such a huge change in the mentality of common culture, and what "looks good"? These questions can also be applied to the idea of the other oriented phycological economy, and how people gain self esteem from others approval. As something becomes more and more accepted in society we, as communal animals, develop a new set of standards for being considered "attractive". The hierarchy system changed in Western civilization, as did the human image that people strived for. I find these changing body practices to prove very interesting, and tell a lot about the idea of viewing human bodies as a metaphor of culture.