beauty and aging
Your Skin Through the Ages
- Infancy and childhood. These are the golden years of a female's skin and should be treated as such. By and large, children's skin is the healthiest health care professionals see. But this is also the time when the greatest damage-albeit unseen-may occur. That's why it's so important to protect children from the sun with the appropriate clothing, hats and sunscreen, as well as keep them out of the sun during its most intense hours, usually 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in most parts of the country.
- Teenage years. This is acne time, triggered by an increase in androgen production that results in increased oil production. A more serious problem in teenage girls, however, is their quest for a tan. Just four in 10 adolescent girls wear sunscreen, while only a third say they limit their sun exposure. Teenage girls also flock to tanning booths, with nearly one in four 15-year olds and older saying they use tanning beds. The devices are just as dangerous as the sun, if not more. Just 15 to 30 minutes in a tanning salon is the equivalent of an entire day at the beach. Additionally, tanning beds, booths and sunlamps radiate both UVB rays and long wave UVA rays that penetrate the skin more deeply than sunlight, making it even more vulnerable to the effects of the sun and increasing the risk of skin cancer.
- Twenties and 30s. You've still got glowing skin, but the aging process is beginning to show. Little by little, your skin begins losing collagen, elastin-the tissues that keep the skin supple-and hyaluronic acid. Now is the time to begin a skin care regimen if you haven't already.
