Fashion and Health

Go outside. Take a look around a city square, a park, a beach. You will see almost no one is wearing a hat. They’re so rare you might think they caused diseases – like skin cancers.

Except they prevent them.

According to the CDC, skin cancers are the most common cancers in the United States. Yet they don’t even collect counts on basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers. Why? Because they’re too common.Nearly everyone who lives long enough gets skin cancer.

Yet the nastiest ones – the most dangerous and disfiguring – are on the head and neck. And many of them –particularly lethal melanoma, can be prevented by wearing a hat. Plus a little sunscreen.

So why do people let themselves become disfigured? Why do they consciously court danger? Why do they welcome leathery skin and the surgeon’s knife?

Because it’s the fashion.

Hats of the Past

If you went to a city park, or a beach, or walked along the street a hundred, ninety, eighty, even fifty years ago, what would you see?

People strolling by wearing hats.

Hats were more than fashionable. They were required.

Only the poorest of the poor did not possess a hat. And for certain portions of the population, pale, translucent skin was considered a great mark of beauty and refinement.

Nowadays, a third of American female high school seniors go to tanning salons – they want to get “darker.” That markedly increases their chances of developing what too frequently become lethal melanomas. It turns out you’re also more likely to get a sunburn in a tanning salon than at the beach.

Tanning, which was previously a sign of being déclassé – or not classified at all – is now considered classy.

In its place we have an epidemic of melanoma. Worse, we help nearly guarantee that most of our aging population will develop basal cell or squamous cell skin cancers.

Is this disaster necessary? In a time where design has surged to remarkable prominence, we need the help of some of the most popular people on the planet – the makers and designers of fashion.

The Fashion Police

People have loads of reasons to not wear hats. Here are few common ones:

1. They ruin my hair.
2. They’re dorky.
3. They don’t make for good selfies.
4. I don’t where to put them.
5. People can’t see my incredible make-up job when I wear a hat.

Yet none of these are a real barrier to human ingenuity – of which the fashion world has spades.

Hats, even more than gloves, were once a major worldwide industry. Hats represent an extraordinary opportunity to spark global innovation. Every hamlet, county, province and nation can compete to create the most creative and lucrative hats. On a nearly level playing, Javanese, Malians, Japanese and Chinese, Alabamans and Frisians can face off to make the most beautiful creations – and save thousands and thousands of lives. Who could turn down a chance to do good, make people look fabulous, and make fantastic money?

But a few healthy hat guidelines are in order:

1. They should attempt to be hair friendly.
2. Brims of 3 and half inches (about 9 cm) should be preferred – to save more lives of fashion-conscious humanity.
3. They should be preferably be light, packable, and easy to accessorize.
4. Be sold with beauty intensifying sunscreens and sun protective makeup.

Competitions for fantastic fats might fan fashion fandom. The most prolific and famous designers could publicaly compete. Beautiful people, famous people and the rest of us could go on the Net, showing off lovely, skin cancer banning hats. Special selfie sticks designed for hat beauty and distinctiveness could be devised. Fashion designers and fashionistas could demonstrate outside tanning salons, picketing while wearing the most original head creations.

Almost all of us might benefit. Who wants to lose a loved one to melanoma? Who likes to see the scars of the knife on the tip of their nose?

Healthy Hat Benefits

Once hats are fashionable again, their benefits might prove legion:

1. People would want to go outside again. By showing off their beautiful hats, they would obtain depression denying sunlight; heart disease denting physical activity; greater social engagement; the pleasures of nature.
2. They would prevent melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma.
3. Provide the population opportunities to combine fashion and health ingenuity. People could work to devise their own personal hat culture.

In this healthy and fashionable future,