As students stroll down Locust Walk, squeeze into an overcrowded elevator in Williams Hall or wait to place orders in a seemingly endless Cosi lunch line, they are likely to cross paths with a number of peers exuding a golden glow.
Were it July in Fort Lauderdale, no one would give that a second thought, but it's November in Philadelphia. Something doesn't add up.
According to Joel Gelfand, professor of Dermatology at the School of Medicine, tanning bed use is particularly common among college women.
And Frank Baer, general manager of Soleil Tanning Center at 12th and Walnut streets, reports that business is more productive when the weather is colder.
With these two factors in mind, Penn would seem to be a hotbed of tanning activity.
However, many on campus say they find tanning superficial and hazardous. Some who do tan are reluctant to identify themselves as tanners for fear of their peers' negative reactions.
"They're like little cancer booths," Engineering junior Noelia Pacheco says of tanning beds.
Gelfand supports Pacheco's description. "Tanning beds may double the risk of skin cancer," he says, also noting possible long-term effects like premature wrinkles and age spots, and the increased risk of an intense sunburn if the dose of light is not properly calibrated.
"There's no such thing as a safe tanning bed," Gelfand says.
One College sophomore -- who has been tanning both indoors and out for roughly the past six years -- says she knows about the health risks of tanning beds, but still tans weekly.
"I just like the way I look better," she says.
Yet health concerns are not the only reason some students frown upon tanning. Many think the look of a salon tan is easily identifiable and unappealing.
"Seeing someone who's really tan in the wintertime, it's very obvious that it's a 'fake bake,'" Wharton sophomore Sangita Vyas says. "It's just not attractive."
College sophomore Kate Bracaglia echoed Vyas' sentiment.
"I think [a fake tan] looks hideous. It looks pretty gross," Bracaglia says.
But Baer has seen a change in the look that tanning salon customers have been trying to achieve over the past few years, with a more natural appearance currently preferred.
"Ten years ago, you used to have people walking around looking like shoe leather," Baer says. "Now, it's just to have some color, not to look like a French fry."
Tanning proponents say it is also worth noting that some health effects of tanning may be positive.
Louise Marzulli, owner of Sun Capsule At The Ritts at 20th and Walnut streets, says that some of her customers claim the bright lights in the tanning bed help improve their moods, especially in the colder months when they are not exposed to natural light as much as usual.
If the ultraviolet light used in tanning beds is also full-spectrum light, then the rays can certainly help those feeling blue, according to Laszlo Gyulai, director of the Bipolar Disorders Program in the Department of Psychiatry.
Full-spectrum light is used in the light therapy treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder, a condition where people get depressed in the fall and winter months. The "winter blues" is not as serious as SAD, but its treatment also involves full-spectrum light therapy.
Yet for some, no benefit -- physical or otherwise -- is worth the risk that tanning poses.
"I know it causes skin cancer, and I don't think it's worth getting a tan for that," College freshman Jill Kahn says.
Nevertheless, it would seem that tanners simply allow messages about the detriments of tanning to go in one ear and out the other.
One student who has patronized tanning salons recognizes the health risks of tanning beds, but says she still uses them "two to three times a year ... to get rid of tan lines."
"It's so bad for you, but you do it anyway sometimes," she says.
