The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed in Britain

This open access book explores the changing representation of sunbed providers and consumers in Britain by analysing the role of the media, medical experts, and socio-political transformations since the 1970s.

Seeking to contextualise our cultural conceptualisation of sunbeds, this volume takes readers through the origins of tanning culture, examining the impact of beauty entrepreneurs and the integration of sunbed facilities into health and fitness venues during the tanning boom of the 1980s. Fabiola Creed utilises a variety of primary source material, including print media, film, medical journals, and trade directories and catalogues, to demonstrate the sunbed's initial association with wellness and luxury lifestyles, and entrance into mainstream use by the late 1980s.

Highlighting how the sunbed is an important case study for the increase in the use of broadcast media as a communicator of public health messages, Creed analyses how commentary on sunbeds spread quickly from local to national media, with medical experts replacing industry representatives as leaders of the conversations around sunbed safety. This shift in media conversations triggered an increase in medical research and Health Education Authority campaigning, and subsequent characterisation of the industry as medically and financially exploitative in the 1990s.

Ultimately, The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed demonstrates how popular culture reciprocally influenced and shaped public health research and scientific discussions during the period, and how this influenced, and was influenced by, the socio-cultural climate of Thatcher-era Britain.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Wellcome Trust.