My mother is 100% Italian. My father, a 100% Irish. My brother got my mother’s olive skin tone: the two of them could sit outside for hours, lathering up in baby oil and bake to a beautiful golden brown. I was the fortunate one (insert sarcastic undertone here) who got my father’s Irish skin. The two of us can’t go to a windy afternoon baseball game without using SPF 45, unless of course, we want to find ourselves covered in sunburn and blisters.

Last summer, I thought I was invincible when it came to the sun. My friends can get tan with SPF 4 or 8, so why couldn’t I? On two various occasions, I felt the effects of not listening to the realistic side of my brain in terms of summer sunshine. I spent a week in June in San Antonio, Texas, where it was roughly 95 degrees every day. As this was a more family-oriented – go out to dinner, do family related things – sunbathing took a back seat, until the last dreaded day, when I thought it was appropriate to lay at the pool, for three solid hours, with nothing – and I mean, not a drop of sunscreen – on my body. Read More »

Every morning I wake up and make a cup of coffee. On my way to work, I drink that cup of coffee while also rocking out to so-bad-it’s-great-80’s-music (whatever it takes to wake up).

Upon arriving at work, I have another cup of coffee. And if I’m feeling down around 2 pm, I will have yet another.

I can’t even get to the gym in the morning without at least one cup of coffee coursing through my veins.

Most people agree that I have a problem. A problem they equate to addictions to crack, the Blackberry or ice cream sandwiches (the ice cream sandwich addiction is really hard to beat – trust me). And I have to agree. Not only is this coffee addiction bad for my wallet, but it stains my teeth, causes bad breath and really can’t be good for my body.

Or can it?

Apparently, drinking coffee before working out causes some sort of reaction that protects the skin against skin cancer! Don’t ask me to explain it because I was an English major in college and know absolutely nothing about the science behind coffee (except that it is totally delicious) or cancer (except that it is totally awful), but someone studied this and found it to be true. Read More »

I have a confession to make now that summer is upon us and the sun is shining every day: When I am really tan, I feel a) skinnier b) more attractive and c) happier.

It’s true. And I’m sure that some of you girls will agree with me.

I have always known that it is not healthy to fake bake or lie out without sunscreen, but it’s just so hard to avoid the desire to be tan at this age.

With new studies coming out regularly on skin cancer risks and stories of girls our age contracting skin cancer (Britney Lietz, Miss Maryland 2006, who was diagnosed with melanoma at 20), I have really been forced to reconsider my tanning habits.

It also caused me to wonder about our parents who grew up in a time when the risks were generally unknown? Well, an article on msnbc.com describes some of the absurd lengths that people went to for a bronzed body that now basically seems like skin suicide. Read More »