| Monday, April 23, 2007 |
| Steroids in High School |
Much more than wins and losses are on the line in today's world of high school sports. Lives are being altered — even lost — to the use of performance-enhancing substances that have made their way to the corridors and playing fields of the nation's high schools. Congress went on to hear from commissioners of the major sports, pro athletes, medical specialists and labor representatives, and the No. 1 concern expressed was steroid use by young athletes.
Sports Weekly wanted to hear directly from this impressionable group considered most at risk and recently conducted a round table discussion with athletes from schools in the metropolitan Washington area. Some of the revelations:
- Use of performance-enhancing substances takes place openly in the locker rooms, weight rooms and cafeterias of public and private high schools.
- Coaches, as well as athletes, know what's going on but are often powerless to stop the use of performance enhancers. Some, in fact, are willing to turn a blind eye.
- The pressure to win is enormous. That pressure extends to athletes, who are also competing for college scholarships, coaches and administrators.
- Although the vast majority of student-athletes consider steroid use "cheating" and acknowledge some degree of risk, some remain willing to sacrifice long-term health for short-term benefits.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/2005-06-08-sports-weekly-steroids-report_x.htm
According to a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, steroid use among high school students more than doubled between 1991 and 2003. More than 6% of 15,000 students surveyed admitted trying steroid pills or injections. At the same time, less than 4% of the nation's high schools were testing for steroids, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations' survey of athletic directors. |
posted by iblaze06 @ 6:45 PM  |
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