As the active and athletic daughter of a dermatologist, from a young age Mia Thiele was always slathered in sunscreen and sun protection was always highly stressed in her family.
“It was something almost like a religion,” Mia said. “I was never caught dead outside without a hat or sunscreen, especially when spending multiple hours in the sun.”
Now the young junior tennis player from Carmel Valley, a member of the United States Tennis Association, is playing her part to educate young tennis players about the risk of sun damage and the moves they can make to reduce their risk of developing skin cancer.
With her organization Advantage: SKIN, she recently gave one of her sun-safe presentations to 55 players between ages 6 and 12 at the Barnes Tennis Center.
Mia has been playing tennis since she was six years old. Most days you can find Mia on a tennis court—she plays tournaments throughout the year, works with a coach and plays on her high school squad at La Jolla Country Day where the rising senior will be team captain this fall season.
“I love that everyone I play against it’s different,” Mia said. “It’s a mental sport, I definitely have to use my mind a lot.”
Mia has learned a lot about skin cancer from her father Jens, a dermatologist who performs micrographic surgeries to treat skin cancer. As Mia shares with young tennis players, the most deadly form of cancer is melanoma and it is directly related to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun: “Children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to damage from UV rays. Just one bad sunburn in childhood or adolescence doubles your child’s chances of developing melanoma later in life.”
The most important message she wants to spread is that it is preventable by being smart about sun protection.
Mia was inspired to start Advantage:SKIN three years ago when she noticed so many of her fellow tennis players on the court were getting sunburned, going unprotected. She wanted to study to see if it was really true that most kids don’t wear sunscreen, surveying players at tournaments and high school matches—asking questions like if and when they use sunscreen, what type and how often they reapply,
“When I got the responses back it really showed half the players didn’t use screen and two-thirds didn’t even wear a hat,” she said.
She started her mission to help educate others with an Advantage: Skin website but soon realized she would make more of an impact if she could talk to kids face to face.
She has even taken her organization international, giving talks to players at the Emilio Sanchez Academy in Spain and the Boris Becker International Tennis Academy in Germany last summer. Mia’s large presentation at Barnes this summer was made possible by Jesse Steinberg, the CFO of Barnes Tennis Center.
“I realized during these multiple talks I had at tennis academies, it was really the youngest players that were the most impressionable,” she said. “They ask a lot of questions and I think they really learned something.”
In addition to raising awareness through her interactive presentations, she also gives out sunscreen samples and bracelets that change color when in the sun to remind the wearer to apply sunscreen. She recommends reapplying often, every two hours (every 90 minutes is even better) and also to wear a hat.
With Advantage:SKIN, she hopes to do some more events at tennis academies and also has made banners that remind players to apply sunscreen, with QR codes to direct people to her website for more educational information. There is one up at La Jolla Country Day and she has sent the banners to about 20 different schools in the area, hoping that athletic directors will put them up, keeping in mind that protecting your skin is as important as winning championships.
Learn more at advantageskin.org
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