Eager to ape the bronzed skin of jet-setting celebrities, pallid men and women are baking themselves in ever greater numbers under UV light in order to create the perfect body ... at least in their minds.

However, the health warnings about such obsessive behaviour are flashing loud and clear.

Doctors from the World Health Organisation now claim that sunbeds are just as carcinogenic to humans as asbestos, mustard gas and the fallout from nuclear bombs. The warning should be more than a small cause for concern in a country where sunbeds are used more than almost any other nation on Earth and which suffers one of the worst levels of skin cancer.

Nonetheless, Scotland’s love affair with UV light continues unabated. Glasgow is said to have the highest proportion of sunbeds per head of population in the British Isles.

Although this is tough to verify, one grim statistic is not: cases of skin cancer have more than tripled over the last three decades and this country has the highest incidence of malignant melanomas in the UK, according to Cancer Research. Scottish women are most at risk from the disease, with 20.5 people per 100,000 suffering from skin cancer.

So why do Scots do it? According to one member of staff at Ultra Bronze, a Maryhill tanning salon, it is celebrities who are to blame. “Everyone wants to look like Cheryl Cole or Victoria Beckham,” she said. “They always look perfect and a good tan is very much part of that mystique. When you need to look glammed up, you have to look tanned.”

“Who doesn’t want to look like Cheryl Cole?’’ said Emma Hayley-Dixon, beauty editor at Scottish women’s magazine No.1. “However, what’s important to note is that she naturally has olive skin – therefore a dash of fake tan still looks natural and in keeping with her colouring. Now I don’t want to kick a lady when she’s down but Katie Price’s tan is nearing the ridiculous. But the person who lifts the trophy for most hideous tan ever is footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. Why a man wants to be the colour of an aubergine is anyone’s guess.”

One person who has been particularly singled out for criticism is former Big Brother housemate Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace. When she appeared on bitchy beauty show Snog, Marry, Avoid? she boasted: “I love fakery. If you can’t do it, fake it.”

When the Sunday Herald caught up with her to ask why she felt the need to tan, Aisleyne replied: “That golden kiss looks beautiful. I always feel better with a bit of sun tan on me, be it from sun-bed or fake tan, which is a bit bad really, because I’ve seen the new government warnings about how bad it is and how it causes cancer. But it makes me feel more attractive and more fabulous.”

Aisleyne is clear on the risks of tanning salons and, despite her own habit, advises young girls to stay away from the dreaded bed if they want to preserve their youth and vitality.

Underage kids are forbidden from tanning beds. But the proliferation of unmanned salons means that young girls, and a rising number of boys, are regularly burning themselves to a crisp. These unmanned salons will be banned from September. But once a teenager reaches 18 they are free to use sunbeds as often as they like. Use of tanning salons during the ages of 18-30 is particularly dangerous, because it increases the risk of skin melanoma by 75%.

In HOT!, another tanning salon on Maryhill Road, a member of staff suggests that around 100 people come in every day to use the sunbeds. The salon is deliberately set up to evoke the spirit of a package holiday, with the heating turned up to sub-tropical temperatures, every wall painted a sunny yellow and the song Hot Hot Hot played on a constant loop.

Inside is a terrifying-looking machine called the X6 Super Intense. It looks more like a Klingon torture device than a piece of beauty apparatus. Customers pay £10 to stand inside for up to 14 minutes, tempted by promises that the machine will “bronze faster, quicker and deeper than any other”. There is also a lie-down version of the X6, that looks like the snarling fender of a Chevy.

The manager said: “Beauty is a big thing and looking good gives people a wee boost. It’s part of our culture. To be honest, I think tanning gets a bad press. There are many more dangerous things around.”

Lynn Dwyre, an attractive 41-year-old recruitment consultant from Maryhill, is so reliant on sunbeds or make-up that she wouldn’t feel confident going out without some sort of tan.

She claimed that people who cannot afford a holiday seek solace under the harsh glare of the sunbed. “When you’ve been laid off or lost your job, the salon can be the next best thing to a proper holiday,” she says. “Having some sun, and a tan, makes everyone feel much healthier. You can see some people take it too far though. They look like they’ve been Tangoed.”

This escape from the grim Scottish weather is another key aspect of the motivation behind tanning. Exposure to the sun produces vitamin D but also encourages the body to release serotonin, the body’s feel-good chemical. During winter, when it’s been raining for days and the sun only bothers to put its hat on once a month, there is no way to be exposed to enough sunlight.

It is no wonder so many Scots complain of being SAD – suffering from seasonal affected disorder or the wintertime blues. Tanning salons are always on hand, though, to provide surrogate sunbeams.

Tommy Sheridan, the former leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, is renowned for the shade of his skin: a deep, luxurious amber. Speaking fondly of the need for “a wee tan” to boost

self-confidence, he said: “I think that when you’re brought up in a climate that could best be described as dreich, then you feel better when you have a wee bit of colour in your face, instead of looking peely wally.

“The people who dismiss the idea that there are any benefits to sunbed use simply do not understand the psyche of those who use sunbeds, because it’s impossible to measure the feelgood factor.

“It’s no surprise to me that the cities with the largest sunbed use are places like Liverpool or Glasgow. These are predominantly working-class cities.”

Although Sheridan believes that having a tan does make you happier, he admits that he is all too aware of the damage tanning salons can do.

“Of course,” he said, “having a tan doesn’t mean you’re any healthier at all. In fact evidence would point to the contrary, that you are damaging your skin and they are now suggesting that sunbeds are carcinogenic. I would argue for responsible use of sunbeds.”