Blog Entry 3

hihi

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037721/site/newsweek/

This article talks about the use of steroids in teenagers in the sporting arena. The teenagers from Heritage High who used steroids were reported to have done so in hopes of becoming physically superior to their rival schools, thus ensuring an easier victory. This highlights a serious issue of how far a teenager is willing to risk his body to attain physical superiority and victory in the sporting arena.
As the article highlighted, in Texas kids are becoming more and more influenced by the sports culture of Texas, where sports legends are treated like kings and paid accordingly. This means that these kids treat these buff bodies as their idol, and as such try as much as possible to emulate their physicality. Some reasons why they are so hard-pressed to attain such a physical standard is probably because they see these sporting stars as the epitome of success and material well-being. This is definitely the dream of many kids, especially those who do not come from especially well-to-do families. They then try to emulate their idol’s success in their own school or at competitions. The thing is, not everybody is capable of attaining such a powerful physicality and strength and such an early age. Keep in mind that these teenagers are between the ages of 12-18, whereas the legends of Major League are in their 20-30s. They have had so much more time to train their bodies, not to mention that the whole life is training their bodies to physical perfection. Compare this to the high school student struggling to cope with their sporting activities with their invariably more important academic commitments. It is simply impossible to emulate the physical perfection of their idols. Because some teenagers find it impossible, they turn to body-damaging risks such as steroids to improve their chances of attaining physical superiority.
As said in the article steroids have many undesirable effects which teenagers don’t particularly pay attention to. In one article I read while doing some background research about steroids, it said that steroids are a sex hormone, much like testosterone. Piling hormones upon hormones upon your body’s already existing hormones causes your testicles to shut down. You suffer from severe emotional problems. Teenagers are not aware of these side effects, and so continue to take steroids. They are not aware that eventually steroids will stunt their height potential and create more strain on his tendons that have to support the disproportional growth of the muscle they support.
What needs to be done is to create awareness of these side effects and how they will ironically hinder them from achieving their dreams. The best way to do so is get their idols to explain how they shouldn’t try to achieve the currently impossible with steroids. The teenagers must understand how their idols got to their current position before they can understand the folly of their own actions.