The sun is a mischief-maker, especially in wintertime. While the sun’s pleasant warming rays are equator bound, the troublemaking ultraviolet rays continue to bombard us no matter where we live and where we travel. Children are particularly at risk.
Here is what you should know:
• Protect kids from the sun all year around. Damaging UVA rays are present during all daylight hours throughout the winter. Children’s skin contains less melanin than that of adults. This allows UVA rays to penetrate into the deeper layers of the skin, causing irreversible damage and setting the stage for skin cancer later in life. Damage is cumulative. The younger the child, the more years of potential sun exposure – and damage – lie ahead.
• A day’s outing in snow country can be as detrimental to the face as a summer’s day at the beach. Winter clothing does protect the body, but leaves the face exposed. Cold weather, light clouds, and the sun lower on the horizon offer limited protection from radiation while modern winter clothing allows kids to spend more time outdoors.
• Winter recreational activities increase radiation exposure. Snow reflects up to 80% of ultraviolet rays (more than water or sand at the beach), adding to the direct radiation. Many winter activities take place in snow-covered hilly terrain, allowing reflected rays to hit children’s skin from various angles. Altitude further increases radiation: the higher the elevation, the less atmosphere to filter out harmful rays.
• Avoiding UVA radiation is difficult in winter. Protective shade requires not seeing the sky directly above. (The shade from a building, for example, offers little relief.) Leafy trees offer good shade, but are absent in winter. Winter sports – and even walks in the park – generally take place under visible sky.
• The back seats of cars are exposed to UVA radiation. This is where kids sit, sometimes for hours. Window glass does keep out UVB, the burning rays of the sun, but not UVA. Car windshields are coated to keep out UVA, protecting passengers in the front seat. Side and back windows are not coated – unless you arrange to have it done.
Skin damage may also occur in children playing indoors near windows. In adults, those who work by windows facing the sun have more skin damage on the exposed side of the face and arm than on the “shady” side. A bright, sunny room for young children may not be the ideal room.
• Keeping kids indoors in winter is not the answer. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that kids spend 60 minutes outdoors each day, preferably in active play, and to be exposed to daylight. The sun’s UVB rays help the body make vitamin D, important for bone formation. Many children in northern North America and northern Europe lack adequate vitamin D levels.
• Recommendations for winter sun exposure are contradictory. “Kids need sun exposure.” “The sun is unhealthy.” But increasingly, experts favor protection over exposure. Radiation damage to the skin of the face and eyes are particularly troublesome, causing cataracts later in life, for example. Vitamin D can be obtained from fortified milk and many other foods.
• Facial skin requires special attention. In winter, for children, choose “broad spectrum” (protection against all radiation) sunscreens with SPF ratings of 15 or higher, that contain a moisturizer, and that have as active ingredients some of the following: zinc oxide, avobenzone (Parsol 1789), or ecamsule (Mexoryl) combined with octocrylene and avobenzone, says the Skin Cancer Foundation.
Apply about 30 minutes before exposure begins. Cover all exposed skin, even under the chin, an area hit by reflected rays. Reapply every two hours. About a teaspoon adequately covers all exposed skin on a child’s face. Use lip balms with SPFs of 15 or higher. Alternatively, use ski masks.
Most sunscreen labels state, “Do not use on infants less than 6 months of age.” Chemicals in sunscreens have not been adequately studied in this age group but, likely, are safe. Keeping infants out of sun is best. However, if exposure is unavoidable, using sunscreen is safer than exposure.
• Eye protection requires wearing a hat and using sunglasses. Choose hats that also shade the face, scalp, ears, and neck. (Baseball caps don’t protect ears and neck.) Sunglasses should wrap around to the ears and block out more than 99% of UVA and UVB and 60% of visible light.
• No sunglasses or the wrong sunglasses can cause snow blindness. Excessive UV radiation burns the cornea and the conjunctiva, the tissue lining the surface of the eyes. The process simulates sunburns of the skin and is also cumulative for life. Early signs include sensations of discomfort, brightness, difficulty blinking, and dryness and redness of the eyes. The discomfort is often erroneously attributed to wind or cold, and may be the reason infants cry in sunny, snow covered areas. For treatment: see kidstraveldoc: snow blindness.
