Parents Underestimate Sun and Need to Protect Their Children Correctly/ New Online-Tool Helps

Full playgrounds, ice cream, pick nicks and barbecues – after winter, everyone is longing for the first warm strokes of the sun. But parents heavily underestimate the risks of spring-sun. According to a study carried out by parent magazine Kinderzeit.org, 90.6% of all parents do not protect children correctly, 80.0% overestimate the length of time their child can spend in the sun safely. But help is near: Learn how to protect your child easily with these measures and a new, free online-tool.

 After winter our skin is not used to UV radiation anymore, the skin more vulnerable and prone to sunburns. It takes quite a while for the skin to build up a natural protection level again. Another factor that exacerbates the situation: the ozone layer, normally absorbing part of the radiation, is thinner in spring than in summer and more of the dangerous rays penetrate ground levels. This results in spring being the most dangerous time to get a sunburn. Parents should not take this lightly, as according to National Health Institute, sunburns triple the risk of developing skin cancer.

But how much time can children stay in the sun safely? “Children are absorbed by their play and just don’t sense that they are catching a sunburn. Therefore, parents must watch over their kid. Our tool gives you a personalized answer for how long your child can stay in the sun safely and how to protect your child correctly.”, explains Kay Schlaaff, head of research at Kinderzeit.org.

Based on current UV-index, age, skin color and protection level of sun cream, the free online-tool navigates parents through everything related with sun protection, including the exact amount of time a child can be exposed to the sun. A guide on SPF measurement, charts and a lot of pragmatic advice can be found at https://www.kinderzeit.org/en/sun-exposure/

About the survey

A total of 3,217 parents were asked to take a survey on their knowledge about skin protection and handling of measures they implement to protect their kids from ultraviolet rays.

Main findings

• A staggering 90.6% of parents who participated in the survey reported that they tend to forget to apply sunscreen on their children during the first days of spring.
• 80.0% of all parents significantly overestimate the time that their child can spend in the sun without protection.
• 64.9% choose a too low SPF factor.
• 21.2% already of all children already caught a mild sunburn this spring, 6.4% a moderate sunburn and 3.1% a severe one.
• Only 21.1% of all parents equip their children with special sun protection clothing during spring.

About Kinderzeit.org

Kinderzeit.org is an information portal dedicated to parents and their children. The website offers helpful information in the fields of health, nutrition, pedagogy, education and living a well-balanced family-lifestyle. So that parents can make informed decisions.