Recently I had a conversation with my american friends about sun cream and how western doctors and medias advice us to protect ourselves, especially our kids from sun by applying a lot of sun cream.
Now with this in mind, I have asked myself about the practice of putting oil on new born babies out on the sun in the middle of the day back in Nepal. This ancient practice and tradition had been carried out by many generations. This practice would a big NO here in western countries.

So are we ignorant back in Nepal about the dangers the sun can pose to our skin thus health? Is the sun-heat more dangerous in western countries than in Nepal? Or are the western doctors and medias just trying to market sun-creams so that the companies that produce them make tons of profits? Or do nepalese have something special in their skin that can handle sun heat that the westerners don't?
And the cases of skin cancer back in Nepal is lower than in the USA. So what's all the fuss and what's the correlation between these 2 very different and opposing practices in two different parts of the world?

Skin thickness.
Whiter the skin, thin it is; darker the skin thick it is. It is not true that thick skins are not damaged by sun, but think skin is damaged much easier. That's all what it is.

I don't know if oil massage does whole lot more than moisturizing the skin unlike widely held belief that makes the kids stronger (kustiwaj??) down the road.

I won't oil babies in summer heat but we will oil occasionally & massage with little olive oil. We usually use baby moisturizing lotion. But I have seen people (Nepali) here oiling their babies everyday in such extent that they are all oily and skin pores are getting jammed up and poor babies are visibly uncomfortable. It makes sense in Nepal oiling baby to protect from cold but here in Texas heat please don't do that. Occasionally massaging baby with little olive oil is good but drowning baby in toriko oil and putting big black Tika on forehead is kind of ridiculous to me.

बाजेको पालामा बिरालो बाधेर श्राद गरे भनेर बिरालो खोज्ने काम गर्नु भन्दा देश गुनाको भेष गर्दा बेस होला ? हैन र ?
तोरिकै किन चाहियो : Olive , , baby oil , vitamin E पाइन्छन लगाई दिने? बाहिरको तातो घाम मै राखेर किन गर्नु पर्यो घमाइलो कोठानै ठिक होला ? हैन न र ?
यो त भयो बच्चाको कुरा अनि माउ लाइ पनि चाहिएन र ?

First of all, skin color is not due to the skin thickness. Blacks don't have thicker skins than whites.
See this study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10607323

Darker skin color is more due to melanin. These pigments actually protect us from the harmful UV rays and person with white skin color is thus more susceptible to melanoma - skin cancer. (http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/sunanduvexposure/skincancerpreventionandearlydetection/skin-cancer-prevention-and-early-detection-sun-damage)


This explains why we are less susceptible to the harmful effects of the UV rays (doesn't mean we are totally clear, just less affected).

Now is the oil rub good for the babies in the midst of an afternoon? You might want to look at any research work done on this regard, but I think you'd be safer with an oil massage around 8-10 am or after 3 pm. I think back home they do this around noon time because the warm solar rays would quickly dry off the oil.

Oil massage to the babies are good for their joints and skin. Moderate exposure to sun is good for the baby, including to raise their Vitamin-D level. People with white skin just cannot afford this "luxury" because of their susceptibility to UV rays due to lack of adequate melanin pigments.