STEROIDS - WHO'S TO BLAME

Editorial from Fitness & Physique Issue #6 (Feb '06 - Jul '06)

by Matt Shepley

Steroids are a problem in bodybuilding. No surprise there, right? Proliferation of drug use in the sport of physique is an age-old debate. Two sources are often blamed for the expansiveness of drug use in the sport: the federations that conduct competitions, and the media (including supplement companies in the form of ads used).

Physique federations operate under guidelines they establish. Given their rules, certain appearances will be the victorious ones. The biggest, freakiest physiques win if that’s what the federations reward. The federations could just as well use criteria that would favor more natural looking appearances and penalize chemically enhanced proportions. And they could deter use of dangerous and illegal substances by actually testing for them too. But some don’t, including the largest organization. Why? Does the appearance of freakier physiques draw more attendance to the contests? That’s commonly heard, but when I think about that, I wonder who would place so much emphasis on attendance. The same people do not produce all, or even most of, the shows, and profits from each show are not very inspiring to influence such behavior even if they were.

The argument for citing the media as the culprit is that larger bodybuilding publications commonly seen on magazine racks use mostly drug-enhanced athletes to fill their pages, which is claimed to encourage drug use by way of providing media exposure for those who do it. From the beginning, and for a long time, federations were also publishers of the more prominent magazines, so maybe an underlying reason for wanting the freakier physiques to appear was to actually sell more magazines by having that content in them. Does the appearance of freakier sized physiques cause higher sales for the publisher?

Magazine publishers often push supplement lines they manufacturer in their publications too, so maybe the primary reason for wanting the freakier physiques to appear is to actually sell more supplements. Using gargantuan-sized physiques in ads implying use produced those results can achieve much success in the way of sales.

There seems to be two things people seek the most in the sport of physique: fame and fortune. Presently in bodybuilding it’s be the biggest, win the top shows, get in the magazines, become more recognizable, and get endorsement deals. Fame… fortune. The problem is, in order to gain what fame and fortune is available in bodybuilding, competitors find themselves having to resort to use drug use. The manner in which the industry operates perpetuates the use of drugs. How is the cycle (pun intended) to be broken?

Aside from the media and federation debates, there is another factor that makes one wonder why drugs are such a big problem in the sport; the law. Steroids are illegal to use, buy, sell, or possess. Obviously the law is being broken if a lot of people in the sport are using these substances. Consider a drunk driver; A car swerves in and out of a lane as it’s driven. A police officer notices what could be a sign of driving under the influence. The driver is pulled over and given a sobriety test. If the driver’s reading from the test shows a blood/alcohol level above a legal limit, he/she is taken into custody. It could mean loss of driver’s license, fines, or imprisonment.

Bodybuilders who have the size that can only be achieved through use of steroids and growth hormones display signs of breaking the law. What if they were ‘pulled aside’ and given a test, taken into custody if they failed, and assessed fines and given jail time?

A highway patrolman may monitor a highway if trying to catch persons exceeding the speed limit. In similar fashion, law enforcement officers could monitor untested bodybuilding contests if trying to catch persons using illegal steroids. Imagine a contest such as the Mr. Olympia. Based on past participation, it would be reasonable to suspect the gathering would attract the presence of law-breaking drug users. What if, just before its start, law enforcement officers showed up on the scene, ran some tests, and ended up taking all the competitors into custody? There would be no show. With no show, there would be no show winners, no coverage in magazines, and no stars to seek out to endorse products (think any company would want someone arrested for drug use to be associated with its products?). And imagine if event organizers themselves suffered loss due to the drug test failures, like an establishment that gets fined for serving alcohol to someone under the legal drinking age. That would get the right people’s attention.

Some federations allow non-tested shows and award appearances that can only be attained with the use of illegal substances. Many of those same people put those winners in the magazines, and use them to sell more of their product in those magazines. But they are being allowed to do it. Ultimately, if steroid use in bodybuilding was significant enough to the government, resources could be appropriated to force change.

So what’s to blame for the rampant drug use in the sport of physique; the competition organizers, the media, the supplement industry, all three of those intertwined and stemming from the same source, or the government?

The examples cited might seem far-fetched, but the point of this editorial is to show that the government has, in its power, the ability to clean up the drug problem in bodybuilding. It just needs to find it significant enough to worry with. Until then, the federations, magazines, and supplement companies will keep doing what they’ve been doing, because they make more money doing it that way. And all the while, the number of competitors who use steroids to try to get noticed will grow, as will the number of cases of health complications and early deaths.