ifting, body building, and weight throwing (meaning the shot put, discus, hammer, and javelin) are almost required to take steroids if they want to be successful. Canadian weight lifter Jacques Demers explained why he felt it necessary to use steroids:
To go to international competitions, you have to meet international standards and those are based on what the Russians and Bulgarians do. They are the best weight lifters in the world . . . and they take steroids. So if I go to the Olympics, I must take steroids (in (Eitzen, 1996, 306).
However, the use of such performance enhancing drugs actually corrupts the essence of fair sporting competition and should be considered a form of cheating.
Another influence on young people using steroids is the body image society promotes as being ideal. Young women face this issue when they see models and actresses on television who are extremely thin, and the young women try to emulate these heroines and often damage their health doing so. Males have a different body image to emulate, and often this leads to the
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