Steroids

In Professional sports there are many different organizations and it has annual revenue of over 16 billion dollars, making professional sports one of the top grossing industries in the world. Why do people watch sports? What do people find so captivating about them? Lately sports have been in the news with areas relating to steroids. This has been a very controversial topic especially of late. People haven’t always known the exact negative effects of steroids. There are many poor outcomes of steroid abuse, but the positives are a lot more valuable than the insignificant side effects. One of the most beneficial attributes to steroids is increased strength. Athletes should be allowed to take steroids because athletes can push themselves harder than before which makes the games more entertaining.

Obviously strength would be beneficial to an athlete such as a lineman on a football team, any kind of competitive fighting such as wrestling or boxing, or a professional strongman. Nichole Barry MD states, “Overall, anabolic steroids increase muscle mass and strength, often at an enhanced rate, and combined with the appropriate dietary restrictions cause significant reductions in body fat, producing the characteristic body builder’s body.” Athletes have more of an edge over those you don’t use them. Less body fat increases speed, makes room for more muscle, and makes the once average athlete better at his career.

Many people are upset about steroids, but why? Is it because the user is setting a bad example? John M. Hoberman author of Testosterone Dreams book states, “Steroids trouble modern societies when they compromise fair competitions among elite athletes. Yet even sports doping can be presented today as a natural step in the development of athletic potential. “Many of baseball’s most talented players, “a veteran sportswriter wrote in 2001, “have discovered the wonders of nutrition, strength training, supplements and, in some cases, testosterone boosters such as steroids, combined with heavy lifting.” As our technology increases our sports should go forward; we shouldn’t limit ourselves to the physical boundaries of the past. But are the health risks enough to scare people away?

“On the one hand, a steroid made improved performance possible, which, after all, is what competitive sport is all about. Yet, steroids posed unknown health risks to those taking them (thus undercutting what I assume is a value for all forms of sport, which is that they improve the health of participants)”, says Karen Elizabeth Smith author of Ethics and Foreign Policy. She was correct when she wrote that to say that is what professional sports are about, improved performance, but health risks are a valid argument as a reason not to partake in steroid use. There are certain things you give up in any job. It just happens to be that if you want to be the best athlete you can be your going to have to risk your health. It’s give and take, a possibility of a million plus salary for putting your life on the line. How many people do you know that would make that sacrifice? People watch sports to see amazing feats of athleticism, if that wasn’t true you wouldn’t watch professionals, you could just go down to the neighborhood ball park and watch the neighborhood teams play in an epic battle of no coordination, with groggy reflexes and no power of any kind to boot.

“AAS use among teenagers has been studied more widely in the USA, 16 to 18 where the prevalence of use has generally been estimated to be between 5% and 11%.” Says BMA Board of Science and Education Staff, who created the book Drugs in Sport: The Pressure to Perform. Obviously this is a problem, when professional athletes take steroids they are doing it because they need to perform better, to a higher level, and it’s a shame when kids see what they do and want the same results, to be able to do the same things. It’s a problem because these kids are in an important developmental time in their lives; the introduction of excess testosterone to their systems will surely cause harm. It’s not necessarily the athlete’s fault. Since this problem is much greater than most people realize they should introduce a course to teach kids about the negative side effects of steroids, and possibly introduce random testing for steroids on junior high and senior high sports teams, but when it comes down to it the best people to make sure that the child doesn’t do steroids are the parents. “Early exposure to steroid hormones can also affect the distribution of serotonergic neurons, their connectivity, and the distribution and binding capacities of receptor subtypes. Masculinization and defeminization of the brain are often accomplished by estrogens, the aromatized products of androgens; the lack of androgens and estrogens during early development leads to female (feminized and demasculinized) brains and subsequent behavioral patterns,” Says the author of Biology of Aggression Randy J. Nelson. Yet another reason for teens not to use steroids, that’s why they should just leave it to the professionals. Most people after reading this would most likely agree.

Let’s take a look at Barry Bonds, setting the homerun record for the MLB association, he used steroids to do it. Can you imagine how exciting it would be to go to a baseball game and have 2 whole teams of players exactly like Barry Bonds? You would definitely have to make sure that you were paying attention, because homerun balls would be coming at you every other at bat. “Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio are just some of the Yankees who have been legendary in American culture for more than the records they made playing baseball.” Says Neil Sullivan. Babe Ruth became an icon because of his ability to hit homeruns. People came from all around to see him, and the popularity of baseball would definitely go up if athletes were allowed to use steroids. Not just the popularity of baseball but all sports, would you not enjoy football more if all the players could automatically hit harder and run faster? Not saying that making steroids legal for the public would be beneficial but there should definitely be some thought about professional athletes, after all they are under constant medical supervision, and if someone is going to take steroids it should be them. They should be the safest of all.

So after looking at some facts and hearing some opinions, you can see that steroids should be permissible in professional sports, but at the same time kept out of the general public at least for younger people still in developmental stages. Think of the future, technology should definitely get a chance to move sports forward like it has everything else. Modern medicine has pushed Doctors to heal better, Educators can use computers to teach better, and athletes should be able to use new advances in technology to achieve higher levels of fitness.