I was raised in Chicago, where the weather is nice approximately 4 days out of 365. After long, dreary, snowy winters with temperatures plunging below zero, we’d all race outdoors in tank tops and swimsuits on the first 50+ degree day. The beaches would be packed with people sunbathing and quite literally, frying themselves. You never knew when the next warm day would roll around. The following day, everyone was beet red and in a lot of pain.
We were the “suntan oil” generation. Nobody was concerned about SPFs, skin cancer, or wrinkles. We slathered ourselves in slick balms that smelled a lot like a piña colada and had 0 SPF.
Knowing now what I do about skin care, I shudder to think of how naïve we were back then, risking our health to look like bronzed goddesses.
It wasn’t until I had children that I really began to take sun protection seriously. If I failed to take proper precautions, I wasn’t just gambling with my own health, I was gambling with theirs, too. The statistics can be sobering:
One out of 5 Americans will get skin cancer.
One bad sunburn can double a child’s risk of getting skin cancer later in life.
The good news is that there is so much we can do to minimize our risk of getting skin cancer. Understanding what’s fact and what’s myth is an important step, too.
I’m happy that my kids have been raised in a different environment than I was. They’re part of a generation where sunscreen is a part of everyday life, not a new and difficult habit to be formed in adulthood.
But we still have challenges. Not every kid is fortunate enough to have a family that can afford sunscreen, or to have parents who are aware of the dangers of the sun.
Our colleagues at Neutrogena® have developed a unique program to help ensure that families who need sunscreen get it.
It’s called the Buy 1 + Donate 1 Campaign.
Every time you buy any Neutrogena product with SPF from May through July, Neutrogena will donate a bottle to a family in need, up to $10 million in retail value.
What an awesome way to protect your family, while helping another family at the same time.
You can watch this video for more details. Let’s make EVERY child a member of the Sunscreen Generation!
Gigi Ross is a wife and mom of two kids (a 10 year-old boy and an 8 year-old girl) living in San Diego, CA. Gigi works as a content and community manager for Johnson & Johnson. A blogger and writer in her spare time, Gigi’s work has been featured on the Huffington Post, Babble, BlogHer and Mamapedia. She keeps her personal blog at KludgyMom.