It is not breaking news that exposure to the sun is damaging to your skin. We all know that sunbeds are unhealthy and that we should avoid the sun during peak hours, smearing on plenty of high-SPF sunscreen when we have to venture into it.

But why has the desire to tan become so much stronger over the past few years? There is nothing wrong with being a pale beauty like Anne Hathaway (above), or having an English rose complexion, yet still we attempt to achieve the perfect sunkissed glow (usually with a streaky and patchy result). The fact is that young women worldwide look up to celebrities as role models on what to wear and how to look. It seems to be their influences that leads over-enthusiastic sun-tanners into dangerous territory.

A study in the UK earlier this month reported that malignant melanoma, one of the most dangerous forms of skin cancer with a direct correlation to too much sun exposure, has reached over 10,000 cases per year. Besides these alarming facts, too much tanning also causes fine lines and wrinkles to appear earlier than they normally would. The skin essentially gets cooked, which causes a leather-like appearance, as well as massively increasing the risk of skin cancer.

We have all seen this before - picture actor George Hamilton or even Lindsay Lohan. In these cases, it is not necessarily the time in the sun that lends to these awkward orange tints. Here, it appears to be cases of fake tanning and binge tanning - or a combination of both. In the case of celebrity tans, there is definitely a gradation of colour starting at Velveeta orange to sunkissed bronze . On the higher end of the scale is the alarmingly tanned fashion designer Valentino (lead picture), going down to the healthy looking glow, always modelled by stunning 'Friends' actress Jennifer Aniston. Peppered in between are the midway tanners - Katie Price, Donald Trump and Mariah Carey, to name but a few.

For example, just last year, a headmaster at the Baines School in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire wrote to parents to discourage their daughters from coming to class covered with a spray tan. The headmaster wrote that she wanted to ensure that "girls do not come to school in varying shades of orange." Whether these young girls were sitting in the sun without protection, using tanning beds or applying spray tan, the headmaster wanted the students to embrace their own natural beauty.

But when youth are bombarded by the fake tans of Victoria Beckham, Price and Lohan - not to mention the latter's new line of spray tanner - it is definitely more difficult to pass along information on the dangers of tanning. Fake tan lotions do not contain dye or paint, but use the active ingredient dihydroxyacetone (DHA), which causes a chemical reaction with amino acids in the dead layer of skin on the surface. This causes the darkened shade of the skin, without exposure to the sun. Available at Sephora stores worldwide, Lohan's self-tanner, called Sevin Nyne, is only one of the many types of these products on the market today. It must be said though that spraying on your tan is a lot healthier than risking skin cancer by lying on a sunbed or baking in the sun without wearing sunscreen.

This leads us to another popular, but deadly, pastime: binge tanning. With one in three cancers diagnosed as skin cancer, experts are blaming this phenomenon for the dangerous rise.

A poll for Cancer Research UK found that more than a third of under 25-year-olds spend more than five hours a day in the sun on holiday. Many of those polled admitted to using a range of tricks to speed up their tanning, such as coating their exposed skin with baby oil. Around 17% said that getting sunburned is just part of the tanning process, while 11% said that they would be prepared to get burned if they did not feel tanned enough towards the end of their holiday. The survey continued, proving that it is not just teenagers who take part in binge tanning. In an age group of 15 to 34, 19% admitted to spending more than five consecutive hours in the sun.

Research in the US suggests a surprising preventative treatment for skin cancer. Apparently, caffeine reduces the risk of basal cell carcinoma, the most common cause of skin cancer. Of course, sunscreen is a more common way to block the sun's harmful UV rays. In a recent study, one in three Americans admitted that they never put any on if they are going out in the sun for four hours or more.

But PLEASE don't take the above to mean you can merely swallow a pot of coffee before heading out into the sunshine. If you want to avoid looking like someone painted your skin in day-glow orange, make sure you are using a sunscreen with at least an SPF of 30, and avoid both sunbeds and overdoing it with the spray tan.