Why do I tan more in the US?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CrowdScience listener Namrata and presenter Chhavi Sachdev have something in common. They both get more tanned in the summer in the United States than back home in India. Namrata wants to know why she came back from her run in Boston with such a deep tan and doesn’t have the same experience in India. She’s got quite a few theories herself and wonders if it’s to do with the angle of the sun, pollution or humidity.
Chhavi talks to dermatologist Neelam Vashi, who’s based in Boston, to find out how we tan and what protects us from the sun.
She meets Julian Groebner at the World Radiation Centre in Switzerland who compares the data in India and the United States for CrowdScience and comes up with a surprising answer.
She also talks to Indians in Mumbai who share their attitudes to tanning and what steps they take to protect themselves from the heat of the sun.
Presenter Chhavi Sachdev
Producer Jo Glanville
Editor Ben Motley
(Photo: Woman sunbathing on sun lounger by swimming pool. Credit: IndiaPix/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. |
| 0:12.7 | But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, |
| 0:18.2 | The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials |
| 0:22.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffle and Rommashranganathan. |
| 0:25.9 | However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. |
| 0:30.3 | So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:40.0 | I love the tan. |
| 0:42.4 | TAN. TAN looks excellent on me, you know, and I look so good in tan. |
| 0:46.8 | In fact, I die to get tanned. |
| 0:49.2 | I wait for, you know, April and May to come in so that, you know, I can go out running |
| 0:53.9 | and I have this beautiful |
| 0:55.4 | brownish tan. You're listening to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service, the show that |
| 1:03.7 | gives your science questions their moment in the sun. I'm Chavi Saj Thave and I'm at the beach in |
| 1:09.7 | Mumbai finding out what people think about tanning |
| 1:12.8 | because that's what we're looking at this week, all thanks to a question from a listener, of course. |
| 1:19.1 | Hi, I'm Namritha and I work in Boston but currently I'm visiting India, so I'm in Hyderabad right now. |
| 1:34.3 | My question for drought science is I'm an Indian who's been living in the US for the past three years, and I've noticed that I tan more in the summers there than I would in India. |
| 1:38.3 | Is it my imagination or is there anything more to this? |
| 1:43.3 | Namrata is convinced that she gets more of a tan in Boston in the USA than she does in India |
| 1:49.5 | and she wants to know what's going on. It is odd because it seems like the reverse of what |
| 1:56.1 | you'd expect to happen. India is closer to the equator. The sun is stronger. We have longer summers. So it seems reasonable that she'd get a deeper tan back home. But she first noticed that she was tanning more when she went out running in Boston. So in 2024, I was on a run at about 9.9.13 the morning in Boston. The temperatures would have been in late 20s, probably somewhere around 27 is what I remember. Weak memory, but that's what I remember. |
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