Why Are We Burning Our Babies?

Jane Eldridge

As if being sprung throwing orange peels into the bin instead of the compost wasn’t bad enough, I was later caught red handed wasting water while I cleaned my teeth! My children are avid environmentalists who are determined to lighten my carbon print on the earth. And whether it’s through fear or education, they are slowly succeeding because I no longer use the car air conditioner and I have finally come round to the half flush policy!

Education and the mass media have empowered our children to assume responsibility for our environmental problems. Their solidarity in this undertaking leaves my generation little doubt that they will achieve this end. Their commitment to addressing environmental issues drives home the stark realisation that provided they can endorse the worthiness of an objective, children will commit to achieving it. It is therefore a sobering thought that we as parents, who by default play a major role in identifying and selecting worthwhile objectives for our children, have neglected to isolate one serious objective – the prevention of melanoma.

Australia has the highest incidence of melanoma in the world. Exposure to the sun is the highest risk factor for melanoma, particularly intermittent exposure and more poignantly, when it occurs before the age of 20. A childhood or teenage history of sunburn therefore can be a significant predisposing factor to melanoma in adulthood. From a parental perspective, it is certainly one that cannot be ignored.

Yet, we are not ignorant. It was fifty years ago that the link was first made between melanoma and the sun when a landmark paper entitled "Sunlight as a cause of melanoma" was published by Drs Lancaster and Nelson in the Medical Journal of Australia. As the evidence linking ultra violet radiation to melanoma began to crescendo, campaigns were launched to alert Australians to the dangers of the sun. The first and most renowned of these was the ‘slip slop slap’ campaign in 1981 that urged the public to slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat. Since that time, the Cancer Councils of the States and Territories have implemented numerous skin cancer prevention programs that have positively altered attitudes to sun exposure and effected successful treatment of melanoma through early detection.

But the statistics reveal that we still haven’t got the message. In a media statement released by the NSW Cancer Institute as late as September 2007, the NSW Government announced it will dedicate $2.16 million to ‘develop a new, graphic skin cancer awareness ad campaign following the release of the latest research showing a large number of people are dicing with death in pursuit of a suntan’. Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Cancer), Verity Firth stated that the Cancer Institute’s Lifestyle and Cancer Survey indicates complacency in regard to the risks associated with unprotected exposure to ultraviolet radiation with more than a quarter of NSW residents reporting that they got sunburnt at least three times in the last year. But the most disturbing aspect of Ms Firth’s comments was in relation to teenagers. According to the statistics, 68 per cent of 13 – 17 year olds desire a tan and in the 18- 24 year old bracket, the percentage remains almost as high at 62 per cent!

In light of the strong link between childhood sunburn and melanoma, these statistics are shameful in a country that discovered the link between the sun and melanoma 50 years ago.

In spite of this, I believe that most informed parents would gloat that their children are adequately protected from over exposure to the sun. After all, most of us are guilt free when it comes to slip, slop, slapping our little ones and sure, we all endorse the likes of the ‘no hat no play’ polices.

But there’s the rub! I vehemently contend that we have got it all wrong and that children’s education must change if we are to effectively combat melanoma. In essence, what we are doing is imposing sun protection strategies on our children instead of empowering them to assume responsibility for their own sun protection. For these strategies to be effective, children need to want to employ them as much as they want to save animals from extinction and see Al Gore run for president. I would argue that their education is deficient in that they have not been inspired to commit to solving the problem themselves. They wear hats, rashies and sunscreen in blind obedience to us as their parents. But once they emerge from direct parental control, peer pressure and the media cut in alongside bikinis and a disdain for legionnaires hats. Body image assumes mammoth proportions and a tan becomes vital. In view of these factors it is futile to expect children to sustain an ideology that has been imposed upon them. They must endorse it to ascribe to it.

But there is hope. Children can and will confront and commit to this challenge if we provide the raw materials. What’s more, if they comprehend the rationale for exercising sun safe behaviour they are more likely to adhere to the practices well into their teens and adulthood which would also ensure that they themselves become powerful role models. We simply need to grant them ownership and responsibility for the problem and I believe that we can achieve this end by including the issue under the environmental banner. My belief is that environmental issues are deemed sexy and compelling where as the sun safety issue is seen as boring, attracting lip service only. And to treat sun safety as an environmental issue is not a long stretch. After all, by virtue of ozone depletion, there is less protection from the sun’s most harmful ultra violet rays and that is an environmental issue.

I think we are selling our kids short. I believe they are capable of solving this problem. They can and will reduce the incidence of melanoma in Australia if we set them the objective and fuel them with the information that inspires them to end this senseless loss of lives. We will have achieved this goal when children are urging their parents to ‘slip, slop, slap’!