The New York Times featuring:
Body-Conscious Boys Adopt Athletes' Taste for Steroids*...
Questions: Do we really truly know ourselves? Do we like what we see when we look in the mirror?
Answer: Perhaps not always.
The struggle for acquiring a desired self-image has always been a part of the American culture. (Now how about in other countries? Why is it that we often stress about this so much---or maybe a bit
too much?) In fact, it's like an epidemic raging across the youth of our society---mostly, in adolescents. While we are concerned about targeting the nation's health problems in obesity, "the mania over instant bulk[ness] shows another side of the struggle for [this ideal] self-image."
Ironically, one would think that normally women and young adolescent girls would be concerned or even obsessed about their self-image---that is, getting that pretty supermodel-skinny look and then becoming dangerously anorexic in doing so. Well, this article proves otherwise. Men and young adolescent boys are just as self-conscious of their own bodies as well---this time, the focus is on getting those attractive rippling muscles and six-pack abs in the quickest way possible: steroids.
According to the most recent national survey, nearly half a million teenagers across the U.S. use steroids and other steroids derivatives (i.e. androstenedione) each year. This includes male adolescents who aren't even active in school sports or any type of sports. The reason isn't just to "get buff" in order to have the strength and speed for sports anymore. Instead, as one high school senior student remarked that guys just "do it for girls" and "for the look."
It's sad that now boys as young as 10 years old are using steroids just to get that "buff look" in just five weeks or less. However, as doctors noted, the increase use of such drugs can not only lead to side effects, but they can also basically "shut down normal adolescent development in male bodies." For example, many of these steroid products "can stifle bone growth" and "lead to testicular shrinkage, liver tumors and development of male breasts." In addition to this, a recent medical testimony in Congress proves that some of those effects can be heartbreakingly
irreversible, "like stopping bone growth in children who would thus otherwise continue to develop."
Why and how does this happen? For one thing, steroids falsely signal the body to stop producing its own testosterone (male hormones), which then leads the body to think that it has produced enough, and thus resulting in a big "buff" body size.
However, dangerous or not, these male adolescents adopt this popular "muscle makeover" by just simply taking these steroids, when originally the steroid supplements called androstenedione (as mentioned earlier), for instance, are used legitimately by adults for recovery from muscle injuries and to improve strength and endurance.
Even though it is illegal for young people under 18, they don't care just so as long as they get that attractive body look no matter what the circumstances are (and even the means to obtain them), even though they are aware of those dangerous side effects.
But what is this all boiling down to? Self-identity. Or at least the search part of it. Of course, we've all read Shakespeare's
Hamlet with those famous lines of "To thine own self be true" (Act I, Scene III). But exactly how true are we to ourselves? Why should we go through all that trouble money-wise and health-wise to obtain an ideal self-image when in fact it destroys our bodies at the same time? Should we un-invent mirrors and re-create the American culture? It's ironic that the mass media have originally used commercials to annoyingly interrupt TV programs and to give us a little break to go to the bathroom or grab a snack, but now, the modern-day mass media bombard us with hundreds of advertisements daily, controling our lives and making us revolve around these commercials (subconsciously or not). And sadly, commericials have the greatest influence on adolescents.
Indeed, the adolescent period has always been known as the most confusing period, but how should we help our youth make the transition from childhood to adulthood as smoothly as possible? Compared to other countries, the American youth goes through more problems than any youth in other countries. These problems include peer pressure and violence as some of the top reasons adolescents go through so much stress and depression.
For males, maybe getting the buff look isn't worth it at all. There are the costs and benefits that have to be examined of obtaining that ideal look. We shouldn't just pressure our youth with these facts, but help them understand and be aware that having a self-image isn't all important. What's more important is that we have to instill the truth in our youth, saying that popular culture is to blame and that whatever the mass media are saying distorts the truths of reality.
Works Cited
Egan, Timothy. "Body-Conscious Boys Adopt Athletes' Taste for Steroids."
The New York Times. 22 Nov. 2002: 3 pages.
The New York Times on the Web. 22 Nov. 2002.
--Reviews by Kathy Nguyen, 2004.
* This article is not displayed for public view, because it is archived and is only accessible by members only.
