As the risks of tanning are well known, University Village Apartments should rethink offering it as an amenity for its residents.

Those who use tanning beds once a month before the age of 35 increase the chance for melanoma risk by 75 percent, according to the Melanoma Foundation New England.

UV allows residents to use the tanning dome one time a day, requiring that they sign a waiver.

Students who live at UV and want to tan have every right to do so. And UV does not have an obligation to stop offering tanning in its buildings. But by including it as an amenity, it forces residents to fund something that is harmful to students. The other amenities UV offers — such as a fitness center, laundry and wi-fi — do not create a proven threat to students’ health. Including tanning as an amenity is unfair to the students who don’t want to enable their peers to tan or who simply don’t ever use the service. Though some students may never use the fitness center, their money does not sponsor a dangerous habit for other students.

It’s similar to if cigarettes were offered as an amenity. There is no law that prohibits smoking over the age of 18, but cigarettes are expensive and heavily taxed. Though many students may smoke, students who do not smoke do not finance their colleagues’ habits.

Instead of including tanning as an amenity, residents who want to use the tanning service should have to pay a membership fee in order to access it and that should be factored out of other resident’s rent.

It’s not UV’s place to tell students what they should or shouldn’t do with their bodies. But at the same time, it should realize the harm it does in offering tanning as an amenity. If UV doesn’t want to get rid of its tanning dome, it should change its policy to offer tanning services only to residents who are interested in paying for it.