Take More Cover ; As Skin Cancer Rates Soar, Why Do so Few of Us Make Proper Use of Sunscreens? With so Many to Choose From There's Really No Excuse

Summary

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EVERY morning at breakfast, there's a minor crisis when I say: "Sunscreen!" and the children dive for cover. Actually the girls, at 12 and 14, are good at putting it on before I ask but my nineyear- old son protests bitterly. "Why?" he roars. "It's not even sunny!"

He knows why; I go on about it enough. The damage ultraviolet light can do to the skin is one of the noisiest bees in my beauty- bonnet. UV light -- not just sunlight but daylight -- is responsible for most of the obvious signs of ageing, such as wrinkles and age spots. Prolonged exposure is also responsible for skin cancer. The damage is cumulative: it stacks up over a lifetime and children receive up to 70 per cent of their lifetime sun exposure before they're 18. These aren't faddy theories dreamed up by some antisun protagonist; they are facts.

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Take More Cover ; As Skin Cancer Rates Soar, Why Do so Few of Us Make Proper Use of Sunscreens? With so Many to Choose From There's Really No Excuse

Most of my friends think I'm nuts to be so obsessive about sunscreen (none of us wore it as kids and we lived to tell the tale, didn't we?) but I feel that, once you know those facts, it would be a derelictio...

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