Dear Sixteen Year Old Me

Summer is almost here. Those of us living in Vigo or anywhere along the Galician coast are lucky for being able to enjoy the beach and the sun. Still, there are some people who feel embarrassed on the first day they wear their swimsuit at the beach, due to their pale skin colour got during winter. Some wrongly decide to start using the tanning bed a few weeks before to get a “healthy” glow. Others believe not using sunscreen while sunbathing will lead to a faster natural tan... Owing to this, here at LEZ we would like to revive a fairly old video entitled “Dear Sixteen Year Old Me”, which we are sure some of you have already watched.

The video was successfully spread over two years ago through social networks and blogs. It was produced by The David Cornfield Melanoma Fund (Canada) to help teenagers become aware of skin cancer and how to potentially avoid it. On their webpage http://dcmf.ca/ they describe melanoma as follows:

“It is a common and serious skin cancer which, if not treated early, is usually fatal. The good news is that the risk of melanoma can be significantly decreased by reducing exposure to UV radiation (...). The bad news is that despite increasing public awareness of the dangers of UV radiation, many people still do not understand the seriousness of the damage caused by exposure to UV radiation, particularly damage caused during early years. Further, not enough people are aware of the early signs of melanoma, or the importance or self detection. As a result, melanoma is often ignored until it’s too late”.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.