Are tattoos telling us something?

I kept seeing things float past about tattoos, sex, sleep and mental illness, so I decided to try to track down the research, since none of the summaries gave a definitive source—just something about University of Miami.  Finally found it in the International Journal of Dermatology, “Are tattoos associated with negative health‐related outcomes and risky behaviors?” Jan. 24, 2019  Two of the authors are at the University of Miami.

Abstract (the article is not available on-line)

Background

Tattoos have reached broadening mainstream acceptance. Medical professional societies have noted that tattoos may co‐occur with high risk behaviors.

Methods

Using a variety of statistical models applied to a sample of 2,008 adults residing in the United States via Amazon's Mechanical Turk, we estimate the associations between tattoo characteristics, three health‐related outcomes (overall health status, ever diagnosed with a mental health issue, sleep problems), and three risky behaviors (current smoking, ever spent time in jail or prison, and number of sex partners).

Results

We find that the presence, number, and specific features of tattoos are positively correlated with two of the health‐related outcomes (ever diagnosed with a mental health issue and trouble sleeping) and all three of the risky behaviors (P < .05). Magnitudes are larger for those with multiple, visible, and offensive tattoos.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that individuals with tattoos are more likely to engage in risky behaviors relative to their non‐tattooed counterparts, which may lead to health consequences. Dermatologists, healthcare providers, and public health advocates should recognize that having a tattoo(s) is a potential marker for mental health issues and risky behaviors.

How taste in beauty changes

Blue hair. That's what we called women over 65 when I was a kid. It was mean, but that's how kids are. And green hair was for a bad blonde rinse poorly applied. Now hair is lime green, purple, burgundy and polkadot, but on young women. What skin shade looks good with purple hair? And men wear orange running shoes with pink shoe laces and man buns. A nose ring used to be for bad tempered bulls, now they're for baristas serving $5 cups of latte. When I served coffee in the 1950s it was ten cents and if you smiled you could get a quarter tip. A nose ring would have gotten you fired. Tattoos used to be for tough guys, usually military, now they are walking art galleries with skin as the canvas stretched across big bellies and skinny calves and no one knows who the artist is.