Effects Of Steroids On Sports
A paper
The Effects of Steroids on the Body and Sports
Sally Hawkins
English 102
The Effects of Steroids on the Body and Sports
When you watch professional wresting do you ever wonder how did that guy get so big? I do and the first conclusion I usually come to is that he must be on steroids, there is no way that is natural. As professional sports are implementing drug testing policies and announcing when athletes are caught using steroids we will get the answer to this question. Young athletes are given the impression that steroids will help them get bigger and stronger with little to no side effects. This is far from the truth, roid rages are commonly discussed as a side effect of steroid use but there are many health risks also …show more content…
related to steroid use. Even though steroids can increase an athlete’s ability making sports more exciting, steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports because steroids gives the athletes an unfair advantage and negatively affect the athletes health.
Steroids are a group of prescription drugs, developed to treat low amounts of testosterone, muscle atrophy in the case of AIDS and other disease conditions involving loss of body mass. Anabolic steroids contain hormones or hormone-like substances, used to increase strength and muscle mass. Steroids were first developed in Europe in the 1930s to treat undernourished patients (Longman, 2003). They were also used to speed healing after surgery to decrease the chances of infection. After learning the benefits of these new drugs weightlifters began using them for competitions to enhance their performance. The popularity and use of steroids after this revolution steroid use has spread among athletes throughout the world. Today, at least one in 15 male high school seniors in the United States or half a million of them have used steroids (Editorial).
Steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports. Steroids cause an ethical dilemma for professional athletes when they have to choose between winning by using steroids and integrity. Athletes are getting the impression at a young age that the only way to make it to professional level sports is to be the biggest and best athlete and the easiest way to do this is to use steroids (Editorial). Steroids give the athletes that use them an unfair advantage over the ones who choose to play fair and not use steroids. Mark McGwire admitted that he used steroids when he broke baseballs homerun record causing a scandal which lead to public debates on whether or not he should be in the record books or if a notation should be put next to his name indicating he cheated by using steroids to break the record (Smith, 2002). Below is a Gallup Poll where people we asked about punishments for athletes who use steroids.
Steroids not only give the athletes that use them an unfair advantage but also have a negative effect on the athlete’s health. Steroids are very stressful on the cardiovascular and nervous systems (Gloster, 2004). Long term use of steroids has been proven to lead to stroke, heart attack, and even heart failure. Some side-effects include liver cancer, jaundice, high blood pressure, and increase cholesterol. In addition, other risks men take when using steroids include shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, infertility, baldness, development of breasts and increased risk for prostate cancer. The side effects of steroids on not limited to physical effects, they also cause psychiatric effects. Some of these side effects include irritability, aggressiveness, depression, mood swings, altered libido, psychosis and mental addiction (Steroids.com, 2009). The following picture shows the known side effects of steroid abuse. The stress that steroids put on the nervous system can lead to roid rages where the user experiences increased rage in a situation where they would not usually be violent (Beacon, 2010). There have been deaths contributed that a steroid users raging on the victim until they die with little to no provocation. The negative effects on a person’s health I feel are the number one reason to never use steroids.
Some people believe that steroid use has helped professional sports by increasing the level of competition.
There are rumors surrounding some of the most successful baseball players that they either have in the past or are currently using steroids. Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez are two of the most famous players that have been accused of steroid use recently and have also brought a lot of fans back to baseball with the level that they are competing at. Alex Rodriguez is one of the highest paid players in baseball history and has his popularity increases so does the suspicion that he is either currently or has in the past used steroids …show more content…
(Barker).
Steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports by giving the athletes that use them an unfair advantage over the athletes that choose not to. Steroids cause athletes to become bigger, stronger and faster than they were naturally meant to be. Athletes who do not use steroids cannot expect to reach the size or power of their competitors that choose to cheat by using steroids which leaves them at a disadvantage during competition. Athletes who have never used steroids and set records years ago are now seeing their records broken by athletes who have admitted to using steroids.
Although steroids can increase an athlete’s ability making sports more exciting, steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports for two main reasons.
First, because steroids give the athletes that use them an unfair advantage over the ones that choose not to, but most importantly, because they negatively affect the athletes’ health. Anabolic steroids are so popular with athletes from high School level all the way up to the top. To prevent steroids from destroying professional sports I believe that better screening and harsher punishments will be required. I believe that when an athlete tests positive for anabolic steroids they should be banned from professional sports. There should be no second chances for them because by the time they get caught they have already used the drugs and received the benefits from them. If we do not show the younger generations now that we will not tolerate cheating and drug use from the professional athletes that our children look up to they will think this type of behavior is acceptable and feel that if they do not use steroids they can never achieve the skill level of the professionals that are using the drugs. For the past fifty years, athletes around the world have used steroids to gain muscle mass, and along with regular work-outs try to achieve the results they
desire.
References
Bill Beacon. (2010, April 22). Caps vow steroid investigation won 't have impact. Kamloops Daily News,A.10. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Canadian Newsstand Core. (Document ID: 2017741861).
JOHN JEANSONNE. (2004, July 9). U.S. TRACK AND FIELD TRIALS, Double-standard blues, Shot putters say they have undeserved bad rap about drugs compared to runners, professional athletes :[NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition]. Newsday (Combined Editions), p. A79. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Newsday. (Document ID: 660690071). |
Jeff Barker. (30 April). McGwire 's return to baseball criticized at anti-steroids conference. McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 2022133791). |
Jere Longman and Marjorie Connelly. (2003, December 21). Americans bothered by drug use in sports, poll finds :[BULLDOG Edition]. The San Diego Union - Tribune,p. C-3. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID: 515086461).
ROB GLOSTER. (2004, February 18). Bonds ' trainer gave drugs to players ; Agents found steroids, files naming athletes in Anderson 's home. Chicago Sun - Times,p. 148. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 548673061). |
Smith, Matt. (2002, August 7). This Is Your Sport, on Dope: State Sen. Don Perata 's bill on drug testing for pro athletes isn 't nearly tough enough on doped-up athletes or their enablers. S.F. Weekly. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Alt-Press Watch (APW). (Document ID: 507500331).
EDITORIAL: High school steroids. (19 August). Knight Ridder Tribune Business News,1. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 884520781). |
The Effects of Steroids on the Body and Sports
Sally Hawkins
English 102
The Effects of Steroids on the Body and Sports
When you watch professional wresting do you ever wonder how did that guy get so big? I do and the first conclusion I usually come to is that he must be on steroids, there is no way that is natural. As professional sports are implementing drug testing policies and announcing when athletes are caught using steroids we will get the answer to this question. Young athletes are given the impression that steroids will help them get bigger and stronger with little to no side effects. This is far from the truth, roid rages are commonly discussed as a side effect of steroid use but there are many health risks also …show more content…
related to steroid use. Even though steroids can increase an athlete’s ability making sports more exciting, steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports because steroids gives the athletes an unfair advantage and negatively affect the athletes health.
Steroids are a group of prescription drugs, developed to treat low amounts of testosterone, muscle atrophy in the case of AIDS and other disease conditions involving loss of body mass. Anabolic steroids contain hormones or hormone-like substances, used to increase strength and muscle mass. Steroids were first developed in Europe in the 1930s to treat undernourished patients (Longman, 2003). They were also used to speed healing after surgery to decrease the chances of infection. After learning the benefits of these new drugs weightlifters began using them for competitions to enhance their performance. The popularity and use of steroids after this revolution steroid use has spread among athletes throughout the world. Today, at least one in 15 male high school seniors in the United States or half a million of them have used steroids (Editorial).
Steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports. Steroids cause an ethical dilemma for professional athletes when they have to choose between winning by using steroids and integrity. Athletes are getting the impression at a young age that the only way to make it to professional level sports is to be the biggest and best athlete and the easiest way to do this is to use steroids (Editorial). Steroids give the athletes that use them an unfair advantage over the ones who choose to play fair and not use steroids. Mark McGwire admitted that he used steroids when he broke baseballs homerun record causing a scandal which lead to public debates on whether or not he should be in the record books or if a notation should be put next to his name indicating he cheated by using steroids to break the record (Smith, 2002). Below is a Gallup Poll where people we asked about punishments for athletes who use steroids.
Steroids not only give the athletes that use them an unfair advantage but also have a negative effect on the athlete’s health. Steroids are very stressful on the cardiovascular and nervous systems (Gloster, 2004). Long term use of steroids has been proven to lead to stroke, heart attack, and even heart failure. Some side-effects include liver cancer, jaundice, high blood pressure, and increase cholesterol. In addition, other risks men take when using steroids include shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, infertility, baldness, development of breasts and increased risk for prostate cancer. The side effects of steroids on not limited to physical effects, they also cause psychiatric effects. Some of these side effects include irritability, aggressiveness, depression, mood swings, altered libido, psychosis and mental addiction (Steroids.com, 2009). The following picture shows the known side effects of steroid abuse. The stress that steroids put on the nervous system can lead to roid rages where the user experiences increased rage in a situation where they would not usually be violent (Beacon, 2010). There have been deaths contributed that a steroid users raging on the victim until they die with little to no provocation. The negative effects on a person’s health I feel are the number one reason to never use steroids.
Some people believe that steroid use has helped professional sports by increasing the level of competition.
There are rumors surrounding some of the most successful baseball players that they either have in the past or are currently using steroids. Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez are two of the most famous players that have been accused of steroid use recently and have also brought a lot of fans back to baseball with the level that they are competing at. Alex Rodriguez is one of the highest paid players in baseball history and has his popularity increases so does the suspicion that he is either currently or has in the past used steroids …show more content…
(Barker).
Steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports by giving the athletes that use them an unfair advantage over the athletes that choose not to. Steroids cause athletes to become bigger, stronger and faster than they were naturally meant to be. Athletes who do not use steroids cannot expect to reach the size or power of their competitors that choose to cheat by using steroids which leaves them at a disadvantage during competition. Athletes who have never used steroids and set records years ago are now seeing their records broken by athletes who have admitted to using steroids.
Although steroids can increase an athlete’s ability making sports more exciting, steroid use by professional athletes has a negative effect on professional sports for two main reasons.
First, because steroids give the athletes that use them an unfair advantage over the ones that choose not to, but most importantly, because they negatively affect the athletes’ health. Anabolic steroids are so popular with athletes from high School level all the way up to the top. To prevent steroids from destroying professional sports I believe that better screening and harsher punishments will be required. I believe that when an athlete tests positive for anabolic steroids they should be banned from professional sports. There should be no second chances for them because by the time they get caught they have already used the drugs and received the benefits from them. If we do not show the younger generations now that we will not tolerate cheating and drug use from the professional athletes that our children look up to they will think this type of behavior is acceptable and feel that if they do not use steroids they can never achieve the skill level of the professionals that are using the drugs. For the past fifty years, athletes around the world have used steroids to gain muscle mass, and along with regular work-outs try to achieve the results they
desire.
References
Bill Beacon. (2010, April 22). Caps vow steroid investigation won 't have impact. Kamloops Daily News,A.10. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Canadian Newsstand Core. (Document ID: 2017741861).
JOHN JEANSONNE. (2004, July 9). U.S. TRACK AND FIELD TRIALS, Double-standard blues, Shot putters say they have undeserved bad rap about drugs compared to runners, professional athletes :[NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition]. Newsday (Combined Editions), p. A79. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Newsday. (Document ID: 660690071). |
Jeff Barker. (30 April). McGwire 's return to baseball criticized at anti-steroids conference. McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 2022133791). |
Jere Longman and Marjorie Connelly. (2003, December 21). Americans bothered by drug use in sports, poll finds :[BULLDOG Edition]. The San Diego Union - Tribune,p. C-3. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID: 515086461).
ROB GLOSTER. (2004, February 18). Bonds ' trainer gave drugs to players ; Agents found steroids, files naming athletes in Anderson 's home. Chicago Sun - Times,p. 148. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 548673061). |
Smith, Matt. (2002, August 7). This Is Your Sport, on Dope: State Sen. Don Perata 's bill on drug testing for pro athletes isn 't nearly tough enough on doped-up athletes or their enablers. S.F. Weekly. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Alt-Press Watch (APW). (Document ID: 507500331).
EDITORIAL: High school steroids. (19 August). Knight Ridder Tribune Business News,1. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 884520781). |