Steroids Beyond Sports

With all the recent attention on Roger Clemens, a good number of prominent people have echoed the same message towards America's young public.

"What kind of message does this send our children?"

Honestly, the naiveness of this question is somewhat astounding. For one thing, the repercussions of steroid use in professional baseball are relatively minor outside of the realm of professional baseball. With all the negative publicity regarding steroids, I find myself hard pressed to see some little leaguer saying he wants to grow up and juice all day. In fact, evidence shows that kids are generally turned off or not affected by steroid use in pro sports, as 99% of teenagers said they wouldn't consider steroid use because a pro athlete does. The stigma of being caught doping in today's sports culture is huge. Doping in baseball is a huge crisis for baseball, but its main role for anti-steroid people is mainly as a scapegoat. The facts also say that a vast majority of teenagers who do dope do so to improve their body image, not to throw a 90 mph fastball or flatten a running back. This goes against what so many people have said about steroids. The real cause of rampant steroid use among teens is not in sports. It comes from a deeply rooted and embedded ideal in American culture as to what attractiveness is.

Think about it. Now days, how many rappers do you see that look like blobs, or twigs, or even average joes? Most rappers look like they're auditioning for a Mr. Olympia contest, with muscles bulging off their half-clad bodies. Surely looking like a bodybuilder is not key to being a good rapper, but the music world today would make you think so. It is an American ideal for men to be incredibly muscular and defined, and that's so basic it seems redundant for me to bring it up. Places like the music industry and Hollywood are some of the biggest users of steroids, all to achieve that often unreachable ideal body. This image is what kids today see and strive for. The biggest reason sports are so often brought up is because it's convenient. A player's performance is easily reflected in the statistics, and the incentive to use steroids in sports is obvious and easy to see. But it is less likely to cause steroid use among teens than the constant subconscious message from the media that anything less than a six pack and huge biceps is ugly. This is the primary place from which male teens base their use of steroids. This is where much of the focus needs to be.