The Australians have a catchy way of reminding children how to keep safe in the sun: 'slip, slop, slap' stands for slip on a T-shirt, slop on the sunscreen and slap on a hat.
This is good advice, and something that anyone caring for children should remember. They are much more susceptible to the harmful effects of the sun because their skin is thinner; a baby's skin, for example, is just 20 per cent as thick as an adult's. For this reason, children can burn in as little as ten minutes, and research has shown that six episodes of serious sunburn before age 18 double the risk of developing skin cancer as an adult.
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