HARTFORD, Conn. -- A recent trend on TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms touting “tanmaxxing” have health experts concerned about the skin of young people, in particular Generation Z.

“Tanfluencers” widely share popular videos of extreme tanning methods and media monitor weather reports for maximum ultraviolet exposure to the sun, as well as other methods, for a dark tan.

The American Academy of Dermatology conducted its annual Practice Safe Sun Survey in May, which showed that 64% of Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, encountered sunscreen misinformation online. Also, 36% of Gen Z named social media influencers as their primary source for skincare advice.

“The survey underscores a perception gap between what Americans understand to be safe sun practices and the reality of good habits. This leads to a difference between awareness and action in protecting our skin from harmful ultraviolet radiation,” the American Academy of Dermatology said in a news release.

The national survey, which included 1,132 U.S. adults, was conducted by Versta Research from Jan. 19 to Feb. 2, 2026. It revealed that “misleading information online is a key driver of sun safety decision making, with more than 16 million adults reporting reducing or stopping sunscreen use because of online claims.”

Dr. Dean George, medical director of cutaneous oncology at the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute, said he is troubled by this latest social media trend.

“They’re doing what the tanning crowd did back from the ’70s with the tanning booths, excessive tanning with baby oil and iodine,” George said. “They are reviving that trend for 2026, which is insane. … You don’t want to get your health advice from TikTok. It’s very bad.”

George said young people “with not a fully developed prefrontal cortex” are being targeted.

“They are going to listen to whatever these influencers have to say in a lot of cases, which is dangerous. I saw that they were even trying to promote melanotan and afamelanotide, which can cause melanoma,” he said. You’re really only supposed to take that if you have protoporphyria or another indication where the benefit outweighs the risk, and that is definitely not in teenagers.”

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, skin cancer is “the most common cancer in the United States, and exposure to ultraviolet rays is a major cause.”

George said one tanning bed exposure increases the risks of developing melanoma and multiple trips a week are “compounding the risk.”

“When you have a tan, it’s basically your skin cells screaming that they’ve been damaged,” George said. “When you get UV radiation, you can actually look at the number of solar mutations that a person has over time. This damage accumulates. When you get UV exposure from the sun or from a UV lamp from a tanning bed, you’re causing damage. The cells are basically screaming ‘Hey, our DNA is getting cooked here,’ and that stimulates the pigment cell.

“Melanocytes are attached in the basal layer and for every 20 or 30 skin cells, and they have these little tentacles that stick out between the skin cells, and they deliver these little granules of pigments to the skin cells. When you get a burn or you’re stimulating that process, you can actually look under the microscope and you can see the little pigment over the nucleus like a little umbrella,” he added. “DNA damage that accumulates over a lifetime. It stays with us.”

He said teenagers and young people in their early 20s don’t understand the risk and are just “living in the day.”

“You see that with smoking and vaping — the damage comes later in life. While you’re young and bulletproof, it seems like a great idea and you want to get likes and attention,” George said.

George said this trend is dangerous and is calling for TikTok to have mechanisms in place to “take this nonsense off of the platform.”

Dr. Richard Antaya, director of pediatric dermatology at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital and a professor of dermatology, pediatrics and nursing at Yale School of Medicine, described the “tanmaxxing” trend as “harmful” and “destructive.”

“We’ve been trying to steer people away from this for a long time, and unfortunately, here’s another one of these trends,” Antaya said. “I’m hoping it goes away like other trends on TikTok, which are damaging.”

Antaya, who has been a doctor in pediatric dermatology for 28 years, said over the decades he has seen improvement in skin care with fewer of his patients sitting in the sun or using tanning beds.

“I have seen more teenagers using spray tans, which are completely safe if they want color,” Antaya said. “But it doesn’t seem that (tanning) was as in vogue to be dark tan like it used to be.”

He added that trends like tanmaxxing can be damaging to the improvements that have been made over the years. He equated tanmaxxing to other vices like smoking.

“Smoking used to be really cool and now it’s not as cool and people realize that it’s definitely harmful. It’s not pretty to die from lung cancer or COPD. The same thing with melanoma. It’s a pretty ugly death,” Antaya said.

“I tell my young teen girls look at your mom and grandma, if you want to tan, you’re going to look like them but a lot sooner,” he added. “Sometimes that’s a good deterrent. But that’s what photoaging is — it’s damage to your skin from the UV. If you protect your skin, your skin looks beautiful for a lot longer.”

Antaya said he’s terrified of the damage trends on social media can cause with the spread of misinformation.

“It’s a lot easier to spread these trends than it is to spread logic and truth. We have seen all sorts of trends come and go and, unfortunately, people suffer the consequences,” Antaya said. “I warn all of my patients about the concerns I have for social media and kids are very influential. There are platforms they are getting their information from, but we have to keep trying to get the word out.”

Dr. Brett Sloan, a dermatologist at UConn Health, said these trends of maximum UV exposure and using tanning booths are glamorizing tanning and downplay long-term health effects.

“Kids have always gone out and gotten tan. We know more information, now its effects and UV exposure, but there is a lot of bad information out there now being circulated,” Sloan said. “There’s no doubt UV rays cause skin cancer, and some skin cancer can be deadly.”

Sloan said exposure to the sun like what goes on in tanmaxxing “ages your skin.” He added that skin also loses its collagen and the skin begins to sag.

“It won’t affect you in your 20s or might not even, maybe in your 30s, but eventually you’re going to regret it. All the tanning you’ve done as a teenager or a 20-year-old,” Sloan said.

Sloan said he sees thousands of patients each year that have skin cancer or pre-skin cancer.

“They tell me, ‘Oh, I haven’t gone out in the sun in 10 years.’ A lot of this damage was done 20, 30 years ago. There’s just this lag period from when you’re getting exposed to this amount of sun to when the adverse effects show up on your skin,” Sloan said. “It’s always a good idea to protect your skin. What you do in your teens and 20s and 30s will catch up to you in your 40s, 50s and 60s. It’s inevitable.”

Sloan said it’s not uncommon for him to treat patients for skin cancer as a teenager or in their early 20s. Sloan said he has treated people in that age bracket that have developed melanoma and died from skin cancer. He said that skin cancer isn’t that uncommon for people under 30.

“It just takes knowing or seeing some of those (cases) to realize the importance of not tanmaxxing,” Sloan said.

Sloan said self-tanner or spray tanner is the safest way to get the tan look because it doesn’t affect the DNA or integrity of the skin. He said there is no such thing as a “safe tan” otherwise.

“If you’re going outside, you should do the opposite of tanmaxxing and avoid the peak UV period between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and protect your skin with an SPF of at least 30,” Sloan said.

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