Skin+Tone

**__Skin Tones__**
A pigment on the outer layer called melanin determines your skin color. There are two forms of melanin: pheomelanin and eumelanin. Pheomelanin is more red or yellow in color, and eumelanin is darker colors like brown or black. So people with more eumelanin have a darker skin color than those who have more pheomelanin.



toward the equator is where people's skin average is a lot darker. Farther north skin color is a lot whiter. The most dark people are from the South East Hemisphere.

**__Does Skin Tones Effect People's Health?__**
The map below shows the average life expectancy for different areas of the world.



the places where life expectancy is low is where the darker skin toned people are.

Dark skin protects you from the sun's harmful rays better then light skin does. It also helps block out a lot of other things that the sun gives us that we need. Vitamin D is one of the things we need that we get from the sun. For darker skinned people, it's a lot harder for them to get Vitamin D because it is not in many foods. Without Vitamin D your bones can become very thin or misshapen. So because of this, darker skinned people may not live as long as people with lighter toned skin. Skin cancer is more common in light skinned people because light skin people are more exposed to the sun's harmful UV rays.