By Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun Get your vitamins from small amounts of sun: New research shows that people who regularly use sunscreen and avoiding sunlight may be sacrificing important vitamin D, which is made by the skin when it's exposed to...

Eighteen-year-old Libby Weldon of Canby, Ind., knows the must-haves for the perfect prom: a date willing to dance, a glamorous dress, strappy sandals, dangle earrings and, to set it all off, the golden glow of deeply tanned skin. At first, her parents objected to the tanning because of its link to skin cancer. Then her dad read an article on the health benefits of vitamin D, otherwise known as the "sunshine vitamin." Weldon, who hit the tanning bed 10 times in the two weeks before the big night, says, "They got used to the idea."

That's exactly the message the $5 billion-a-year indoor-tanning industry is hoping every parent gets, as it launches its national "It's time to rethink sun bathing" campaign. Buoyed by research that links low levels of vitamin D (which the skin naturally makes when exposed without sunscreen to ultraviolet rays from the sun) to higher risks of cancer, heart disease and autoimmune disorders, the Indoor Tanning Association (ITA) sees an opportunity to recast the public's view of tanning. Even though skin cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in the country, the trade...
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