Tell Doctor Doom To Get A Life.

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If the medical profession is to be believed, then at some time in the future we are going to die and it is all our fault. Apparently we, the great uneducated, are failing to listen to the gods of medicine and as a result we are all going to suffer a slow, painful and undignified demise. In the past month or so the prophets of medical doom have told us that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, that we should stop eating copious amounts of sugar and fatty foods, we should stand up at our desks rather than sit down, we should exercise more, sleep less and avoid any activity more dangerous than doing the daily crossword. Now we are told that there is no such thing as a safe suntan. Any exposure that turns our skin a single shade darker, we are told, risks gigantic lumps of malignant melanomas bursting out all over the place. This advice is all due to the fact that the very clever people in white coats have noticed that skin cancer is on the rise and it's all due to the fact that we are heading off once a year to hot climates and vegetating on the beach. Such behaviour, the medics advise, is wholly irresponsible and we must stop it immediately.

Oddly this advice is nothing new. For years we have been told of the dangers of sunbathing, how getting sunburn is painful, ugly and how wanting that year round tanned look risks long term damage to the skin including premature ageing and that disease of modernity – cancer. Years ago the Australian government, worried about rising cases of skin cancer, even instigated an advertising campaign that told everyone to slip, slop, slap. Slip on a shirt, slop on the sun lotion and slap on a hat. That advice was adopted and regurgitated by governments around the world and in simple terms we were all told to cover up, stay indoors and only to come out when it was dark. The result, we all developed Vitamin D deficiency. Unbelievably, Rickets, a disease of the nineteenth century, is making a comeback in the UK and the clever people in white coats are dishing out Vitamin D supplements like... Well... Like pills! Apparently then, the high priests of health have decided that the only way we should enjoy a bit of sunshine on our holidays is to sit beneath a large impermeable umbrella, five inches of sunscreen smothering every millimetre of skin and a bowl of concentrated vitamin D pills readily at hand. Sounds fun doesn't it?

Of course you could take such advice with a pinch of salt and instead opt to use your own common sense. Getting drunker than a judge every day is a pretty silly thing to do but having a glass of red wine here and there or even the odd beer is unlikely to make your liver explode. Likewise a McDonald’s hamburger every now and then is pretty harmless but eat one or two a day and you are going to get very fat and your arteries are likely to turn to stone. Equally doing any regular exercise that gets you sweating and your heart pumping is a very good thing but over do it by trying to run a marathon twice a week and there's a good chance your hip joints will turn to dust and your heart will go bang. In short, the medics with their double blind studies and drug company literature, always seem to go overboard with their advice but that doesn't mean we should go overboard with our response. Everything we do has some inherent risk attached but the saying “all in moderation” is as true today as it was when we stopped sending children up chimneys and down coal mines.

Take snorkelling for example. Going into the sea with a mask, snorkel and flippers and you risk drowning, hypothermia, bumps, grazes, sunburn, urchin spine injuries, coral scrapes and, in some places, even shark attacks. And yet with a little common sense these risks can by mitigated. You can avoid drowning by being able to swim and knowing when the water is too rough for you. To avoid hypothermia wear a wetsuit and limit your time in the water. Sunburn is avoided by wearing a rash vest and both a wetsuit and a vest will give protection against stings and scrapes. And of course not provoking the more agile and toothy of the sea critters is always a good idea. None of these little tips require you to have an advanced degree or need testing under laboratory conditions, they are simple common sense advice.

So go out and enjoy your holiday this year. Get a bit of vitamin D producing sun on your back, have the odd beer, enjoy the local cuisine and of course, go snorkelling, freediving and bubble blowing if that's your thing, safe in the knowledge that even if doctors followed every single piece of their own advice, they will still die like everyone else it's just they would have missed out on living on the way.

For more common sense tips check out our snorkelling hazards page