Throughout the history of athletics, athletes have searched for ways to make themselves better, faster, and stronger. Steroid use is one of the most popular choices among these athletes. Steroids are synthetic hormones that produce specific physiological effects on one's body and have been used since the 1930s (Center for Substance Abuse Research). Although the German Scientists who discovered steroids did not intend to use it for body building or to create better athletes, steroid use has developed into a controversial subject concerning the health of users and other moral issues. The use of steroids in athletics is physically and morally wrong because it essentially promotes the deterioration of the health of athletes and unfair competition among these athletes. While some athletes will argue that steroids give them an extra edge against their competition, many studies have shown that the risks of steroid use deeply outweigh the benefits, especially in adolescents. Anabolic and androgenic steroids, which are the most commonly used, have adverse effects on the entire body. The most harmful of these effects are damages to the brain. When injected or taken orally, steroids have dangerous mental effects, such as extreme mood swings, violence, steroid withdrawal, and depression leading to suicide (National Institute on Drug Abuse). This is more intensified in adolescents ("Dangers of steroid abuse for teenage boys"). These mental effects would not only impair their body but would hurt their personal life and relationships with others. These negative effects are not worth the extra "edge" an athlete receives from steroids. In addition to adverse mental effects, steroid abuse extremely damages major bodily functions. For example, ... ... middle of paper ... ... Muscle & Fitness. 01 Sept. 1997. Web. 27 Feb. 2010. Longman, Jere. "OLYMPICS; Drug-Testing Agency Tells of a Steroid Scheme by U.S. Athletes." The New York Times. The New York Times. 17 Oct. 2003. Web. 27 Feb. 2010. National Institute on Drug Abuse. "Steroids (Anabolic-Androgenic)." National Institute on Drug Abuse. National Institutes of Health. n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2010. Rhoden, William C."Why Baseball Should Keep Talking About the Past." The New York Times. The New York Times. 12 Jan. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2010. Stepan, Kate. "Students question use of cortisone in college athletics." The GW Hatchet. College Media Network. 06 March 2000. Web. 27 Feb. 2010. "Steroids discovered in probe of slayings, suicide." ESPN. ESPN. 27 June 2007. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. Zundel, Irene Helen. "Steroids: Recognizing Teenage Substance Abuse." EduGuide. EduGuide. n.d. Web. 9 Feb. 2010.
Anabolic steroids have become an epidemic amongst athletes since the 1950's when a Swiss company by the name of Ciba Pharmaceuticals introduced what was to become the most popular anabolic drug for athletes called methandrostenolone. “By this time, the era of the steroid athlete was well underway and world records were being shattered and re-shattered with remarkable regularity.” (Oklobdzija & Weyrauch, 1989, para 3) From then on, there have been many cases throughout professional sports where athletes are reported or caught using anabolic steroids.
Steroid users damage their own well-being and the image of the sport. Baseball players who decide to use anabolic steroids are affecting themselves just as much as the game of baseball itself. One way steroids affect players is the effect on the mind and mental health of users. When baseball players take steroids, they put their bodies at risk. The risks include psychiatric symptoms such as bipolar disorder (Mitchell 55).
Abstract: Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of edge over their competitors. They will do whatever it takes to be one of the elite, and that includes injecting supplements into their bodies to make them bigger, stronger, and faster. Steroid use is probably one of the most common drug misuses in sports competition. Athletes found that with anabolic steroids, one could become a better athlete twice as fast. Not until 1975 was the drug first banned from Olympic competition because of the health risks it produced.
Latiner, C. (n.d.). STEROIDS AND DRUG ENHANCEMENTS IN SPORTS. THE REAL PROBLEM AND THE REAL SOLUTION. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from https://laworgs.depaul.edu/journals/sports_law/Documents/Steroid%20Problem%20by%20Laitner.pdf
Sports Illustrated. “How we got here: A timeline of performance-enhancing drugs in sports” 11 Mar. 2008. Web. 5 May 2014.
Goldman, B. ( 1984). Death in the Locker Room: Steroids and Sports. Indiana: Icarus Press.
While the effects of steroids can seem desirable at first, there are serious side effects. Excessive use can cause a harmful imbalance in the body's normal hormonal balance and body chemistry. Heart attacks, water retention leading to high blood pressure and stroke, and liver and kidney tumors all are possible. Young people may develop and a halting of bone growth. Males may experience shrinking testicles, falling sperm counts, and enlarged prostates. Women frequently show signs of masculinity and may be at higher risk for certain types of and the possibility of birth defects in their children. The psychological effects of steroid use are also alarming: drastic mood swings, inability to sleep, and feelings of hostility. Steroids may also be psychologically addictive. Once started, users, particularly athletes, enjoy the physical "benefits" of increased size, strength, and endurance so much that they are reluctant to stop even when told about the risks. Major athletic competitions, including the Olympics, routinely screen athletes to prevent steroid use.
The intent of this essay is to show that steroids have many negative effects and that steroids, and other natural supplements, should be closely studied by the FDA. This essay will also support the claim that the professional sports industry needs to eliminate steroid use and set a good example for younger athletes.
My issue over the concern of athletes have been struggling with the usage of steroids has widely spread among athletes and others; not only do steroids give an athlete a hard times but it’s also an unfair advantage to the other athletes and what they’ve accomplish. “Besides making muscles bigger, anabolic steroids may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the amount of muscle damage during the session” (“Steroids in Sports”,2005). Now a days steroids are everywhere as an athlete. Many males and female young athletes preferably take it because they want to look and feel good when it comes to impressing someone and trying to become someone they look forward too. Young teens and adults try to cheat themselves in the career of their dreams. When it comes to a sport, teen athletes are not aware of what type of consequences may happen to them at the time. It may come to the time where it’s too late to take care of. In other cases, some athletes may like feeling the aggressive they get when they take drugs such as steroids. Athletes shouldn’t take steroids as the harmful health effects of the anabolic steroid in population wise. Many people have had their lives ruined by the use of illegal steroids and yet the desired effects are overwhelming that people tend to forget about the results and consequences that may effect. Athletes on steroids believe taking steroids will enhance their performance, strength, and size without having to put necessary work. These benefits, however, are associated with much short-term and long term risk.
Scott, Michael. “The Use of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports.” The Use of performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports. San Joaquin Delta College, 2008. Web. 19 June 2013.
Today the sports world is being overtaken by performance enhancing drugs. Steroids have been around for many years, and yet people are still using these drugs to be the best they can be, when they know that it is unfair to the athletes that are not using these drugs. Steroids have many effects such as androgenic effects, but can also create easy muscle building due to the testosterone put into the drug. “Brown-Sequard injected himself with an extract from the testes of guinea pigs and dogs. In 1889, he reported to the scientific community in Paris that these extracts increased his strength and alertness” (“Freedman, 8”). “Synthetic anabolic steroids, the same anabolic steroids we have available today have been used in competitive sports since the 1950's,
Steroids can seem harmless to the uninformed user but they actually have harmful side effects. According to the article “News examines relationship between steroids and heart-related deaths,” published by New York Daily News, “The study (presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions in Chicago on Nov. 12, 2006) shows that deaths jumped from 476 from in 1980-1992 to 987 from in 1993-2005. Overall, 1,463 young athletes died between 1980 and 2005”(NY Daily News). This is a terrifying statistic and will only continue to rise.
From cheating on tests, to plagiarizing essays, to lying to parents, humans have always yearned for a way to achieve goals while putting in minimal effort. The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports, more commonly known as doping, is a prime example of this deceitful nature. Doping is defined as “an act or instance of giving a narcotic, usually a steroid, to an athlete to unfairly boost performance in a competition.” By its very definition, doping is cheating. While the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) may seem to be a relatively new practice, from the steroid era of the MLB to the tainted dynasty of Lance Armstrong, the act of cheating to enhance performance can actually date back to the first Olympics. The problem has undeniably
Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950’s. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user.
..., Kjetil K. "Why We Shouldn’t Allow Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sport." Academia.edu. Academia.edu, 1 Apr. 2011. Web. 06 Jan. 2014. .