Cheating to Win

As I was watching this video, I found myself wondering why in the world someone would make such a big deal about the use of steroids if there are no real long-term health risks caused by it. However, the video only focused on the use of steroids among healthy adult males, but what about unhealthy adult males? The video also failed to address the effects that the drug has on others, like women and children. Thus, arguments could be made that steroid use among 'healthy' males influences steroid use among unhealthy males, women, and children. Other arguments could be made that steroid use among unhealthy males, women, and/or children is bad; so, why should healthy adult males be allowed to use it? Furthermore, what constitutes a healthy adult male? If healthy adult males were allowed to use steroids, who would stop others from using them to get steroids? It would be yet another case of how children use adults over the age of 21 to get their hands on alcohol; however, in this case, it would be people, not only children, using healthy adult males to get steroids. So, do I think that steroids can be used responsibly? No, of course not! Like any other drug, the abuse of steroids is inevitable. If someone wants to get bigger, they will probably use more steroids, which is another topic that the video failed to address: the overuse of steroids. However, the biggest and most important topic that the video failed to address is that its cheating! Legalizing the use of steroids would be like allowing children to cheat in school; both have no long-term health effects and they both have good outcomes, one gives you a good body, the other gives you good grades. So, what do you have to lose? Only your self-respect.

My reaction to steroid use is that it should be regulated. So, I am glad that students are being tested for steroids because it is cheating. However, I think there should be different standards for professional athletes vs. high school athletes. I would think that professional athletes would be likely to use more steroids than high school athletes. Yet, I do not think that there should be different steroid use standards for different sports because even though sports are different, the main aspects to them are not. The key aspects for each sport are speed and strength, which can be enhanced by steroids. Thus, steroid use among different sports would most likely be nearly the same.

As Hoberman suggests, I also think that steroid use is, to some extent, caused by our culture's desire for people to be the best. However, it is also caused by the desire of people to do well and, not to mention, look good. Although our culture's expectations are somewhat responsible for the use of steroids among athletes, it all comes down to who you are as a person and what actions you choose to take. When things go bad, you can't always blame others for the actions that you made. Eventually, you have to recognize that it was your actions that placed you in this situation: you chose to take steroids; thus, only you are to blame.