To think my dad is being irresponsible for not wearing sun cream?

[brunettebunny]

He seems to think he 'doesn't need it' and is somehow not at risk of getting cancer from not wearing sun cream. He just doesn't ever wear it, and I really cant understand this mentality. Even on that really hot day we had a few weeks ago, he didn't wear any.

Yesterday he said he had fallen asleep on the beach (in UK) for an hour from around 2-3pm, it was 25 degrees, and when I asked if he has worn sun cream he said no (of course I already knew the answer to this).

He is outside in the sun quite a bit as he plays cricket every Saturday, and in the week he helps to prepare & maintain the cricket field, so does have a fair bit of sun exposure.

AIBU to think this attitude is really irresponsible and selfish? He is 61, a father and a grandfather, and in my opinion should know better and want to keep himself healthy. Or should I just keep my nose out, and think he is an adult and its his decision whether to wear it or not?

Its just really wound me up and whenever I try to speak top him about it he just fobs me off with either 'I don't need to wear it' or 'I will' when we both know he has no intention of doing so.

[Mrsjayy]

I can remember in the 80s mum and aunts used tanning oil

[Theycallmemellowjello]

Yeah, it's a balance - vitamin D is important too (especially for older people). He presumably take steps to not get burned, I'd let him get on with it. It is weird to go on about it.

[tobysmum77]

yabu, its up to him. I often wonder how many sun cream fanatics go to hot countries on holiday and sunbathe.... probably quite a lot.

Personally I don't, and my back remains covered. Like others I think we have health scares coming re the sun cream generation so I exercise common sense re myself and the dcs.

And what difference does it being a hot day to the strength of the sun??? None....

[ThatBloodyWoman]

I can't remember the last time I used suncream is this country.
If its too hot I sit in the shade.
If I know there'll be no shade and its very hot,I cover up or adjust my plans.

[Metacentric]

A persons risk of developing melanoma doubles when sunburnt five times. 42% of people polled by the Skin Cancer foundation reported getting sunburnt once a year.

Retrospective recollection by people who have a disease is notoriously unreliable. This dogs, for example, research into secondary smoking, which is still a statistical minefield. People who didn't smoke but who nonetheless contract lung cancer are obviously going to report being around smoke but (a) we don't know how accurate their recollections are and (b) we know even less whether their exposure was higher than average. It looks like exposure to sun increases the risk of skin cancer somewhat, but we don't know whether that's linked to a genetic pre-disposition or some other factor.

The rates of skin cancer amongst people in their sixties and seventies are about twenty times lower than lung cancer. That generation are likely to have both smoked and been exposed to the sun without modern sunscreens. That implies that if sun is a directly causative factor (rather than a more complex stew of genetic predisposition) then it's not a very strong one.

[Ankleswingers]

My DF has had two types of skin cancer this past year. A melanoma and squamous cell. Both cancers were on his face. Both as a result of sun damage.

It has been a scary ride for him.

YADNBU at all OP.

Sensible is the word that springs to mind.

[Metacentric]

Both as a result of sun damage.

The OP's father is 61. Skin cancer risk, like most other cancers, grows roughly linearly with age. Most theories of how sun damage causes cancer make it very slow acting; short of using a sunbed even the most excitable of hypothesis talk about twenty or thirty year lead times (ie, exposure as young adults possibly causing problems in your fifties and sixties). So even if the OP's father is doing himself additional damage, what are the chances that it will come to anything during his remaining life? And if he does develop skin cancer in the next thirty years, what's more likely: exposure in his sixties and seventies, or exposure over the first sixty years of his life, about which he can do nothing?

The incidence of skin cancer is low: about a 0.1% chance per year, at the peak years of risk. Playing cricket (ie, regular exercise) is doing him a hell of a lot more good (risks of heart attack and stroke are a bloody sight higher than 0.1% per year for for 61 year old men) than the minute chance that further sun exposure will harm him.

As Larry Niven wrote in another context, if we routinely lived to be a thousand, we'd be an awful lot more careful about crossing the road. But we don't.

[iniquity]

I would advice him to check his skin but wouldn't nag too much about sun lotion. I never put cream on my son in this country as he has north African skin and would be at risk of bit d deficiency.
I always put some on me these days because I'm worried about wrinkles but I maybe at risk of deficiency too.
Both my dad and grandad have had non malignant skin cancers but they weren't really a big deal.. Far worse things to get at that age.
My gran had the malignant form in 80s but it was treated no problem. She suffers terribly with her bones so she may not have lived so well without the vit d from sunlight.