Chibo Mertineit, Lillian Rock
How hot has the last week been – or better, felt? And it was only in the low thirties. How will we cope once we get into the forties?
The UV rating has been, for weeks, in extreme, even when it’s overcast, mostly between twelve and fourteen out of fifteen! That means we are starting to burn our skin within minutes, not hours. While Australia is the world leader in skin cancer, we are letting our kids do school sport outside in these conditions. When I asked the Cancer Council, while they had still shops around here, twenty-five years ago, because I saw all these mums on the side of the soccer field with their newborn babies, they told me that bubs shouldn’t be in the sun in the first twelve months. That was twenty-five years ago.
The skin is our biggest organ. Maybe it’s time to rethink and question if outside sport in these conditions in summer is really healthy? Isn’t it more than ironic that we whities find brown skin on us so chic and sexy that we burn our largest organ, while they are selling skin whitener in India and Thais go swimming with a shirt on?
