“Indoor tanning is implicated in more cases of skin cancer than cigarettes are in lung cancer,” says Jayme Bashian, lead medical aesthetician of Simply Posh Aesthetic Spa, a division of Advanced Dermatology PC. “This frightening reality can be obscured by what some consider a tan’s ‘healthy’ appearance. Add in that gyms across the country offer tanning beds alongside exercise, and people may be getting mixed messages.”

To help people separate the fact from the fiction, Bashian shares the facts behind five common indoor-tanning myths.