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Subscribe to RSSAccording to a new report, the quest for the perfect body is putting more boys at risk than ever. Experts say that extreme weight-lifting and calorie-counting is on the rise in boys as young as 14, which could interfere with their development. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.
All those glossy magazine ads showing men – and women – with bulging muscles may be having a big impact on America’s youth. In a new study of 2,793 teens from 20 urban middle and high schools, more than 90 percent of boys and 80 percent of girls said they were exercising to become more buff.
If exercise was the only method kids were using to pump up their muscles, it wouldn’t be a problem. But a large number of American teens are also using protein powders and other methods to help them bulk up, researchers reported. And even more concerning, almost 6 percent of boys and 5 percent of girls were turning to steroids to achieve the toned up look they craved, according to the study published Monday in Pediatrics.
What’s troubling, the researchers say, is the possibility that as they grow older, more and more teens will turn to unhealthy methods to muscle up.
“If they’re interested in developing muscle at 13, 14, and 15, what are they going to be doing at 18 or 20?” says the study’s lead researcher Marla Eisenberg, an assistant professor in pediatrics in the division of Adolescent Health and Medicine at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. “Are they going to be doing something more dangerous?”
The researchers were surprised at the number of girls who were hoping to bulk up. That certainly signals a change in what American teens see as the ideal female body.
“The ideal figure for women for a long time was very thin,” Eisenberg says. “Now more and more we’re seeing images of women who are not just slender, but also have toned shoulder and arms. They’re very fit looking.”
For the new study, Eisenberg and her colleagues surveyed adolescents from 20 middle schools and high schools in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area of Minnesota. The teens, whose average age was nearly 14 and a half (14.4), were asked to fill out a 235-item questionnaire.
The questionnaire looked at attitudes and behaviors relating to weight and appearance.
Particularly telling were the answers to this question:
“How often have you done each of the following things in order to increase your muscle size or tone in the past year? (a) Changed my eating (b) Exercised more (c) Used protein powder or shakes (d) Used steroids (e) Used another muscle building substance (such as creatine, amino acids, hydroxyl methylbutyrate, DHEA, or growth hormone).”
The possible answers were: never, rarely, sometimes, often.
More than two thirds of boys said they had changed the way they ate to muscle up, while more than 90 percent said they were exercising to add muscle, 40.9 percent saying they did this often. Similarly, nearly two thirds of girls said they’d changed their diets and more than 80 percent girls said they were exercising to tone their muscles.
Among the boys, 34.7 percent were consuming protein powders or shakes, 5.9 percent reported using steroids, and 10.5 percent said they were using some other muscle enhancing substance. That’s compared to 21.2 percent of girls using protein powders or shakes, 4.6 percent taking steroids, and 5.5 using some other muscle enhancing substance.
Those numbers concern Dana Rofey, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Weight Management and Wellness at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
“I am quite surprised at the prevalence of protein powders and shakes and steroid use,” Rofey says.
While it’s good that young people are trying to get in shape, there could be a dark side to all this bulking up if kids take it too far, Rofey says.
A study like this should serve as a warning call to parents, she adds.
“I always tell my patients’ parents, you can never underestimate your role in terms of role modeling,” she explains. “I have two young daughters myself. Sometimes I have to stop and explain to them why I’m working out. Why I’m doing all those ab exercises.
"You need to talk openly with them about the importance of being healthy and of not doing fad kinds of things to look a certain way.”
For her part, Eisenberg hopes that people will understand that fitness is a good thing, but you have to achieve it through healthy means.
“We definitely don’t want to be taken as trying to send the message that exercise or eating in a certain way is bad,” Eisenberg says. “There are many good things that go along with those behaviors, such as general fitness and health. We’re concerned that when achieving a certain physical appearance is the driving force, those good behaviors might give way to less healthy ones in the future.”
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A dress code should be mandatory when attending school. School is a place to learn not give a fashion statement. For years the Julia Roberts movie "hooker look" has been imitated. This is completely
inappropriate for school as well having an absence of self respect. Teenagers imitate slutty videos or hoodlum punks thinking this is cool. This distasteful need to project themselves as prostitutes is beyond my comprehension. Especially when prostitutes make a living projecting themselves at first glance
to appear as " I am for sale anyone can buy me look". This trend instills… don’t care about me the person only look at my body. What a distasteful need to be female exhibitionist or young men appearing as punks showing their underwear imitating felons “I am easy sex to have code” within men’s jail. If that's what their families buy them to wear I fault the parent’s lack of parenting skills in supervising care for their daughters safety or son's ethics. Again in school there should be a mandatory standard of conduct which includes a dress code. The distracting exhibitionist trend does not belong in school. That is why kids graduating from school
have no concept of dressing appropriately for work. It has become common to see women at work with very low cleavage or such short skirts they can't sit or bend without showing their underwear if they wear one. Men dress sloppy and look like unmade beds. If they choose to wear these exhibitionist styles after school is both theirs and their parents prerogative no matter how distasteful we may find it. I applaud the principal completely and agree that in an academic environment everyone must abide to proper school attire while attending classes....... Period.
The only part that anyone needs to worry about is the "4.6 percent taking steroids" and "5.5 using some other muscle enhancing substance."
All the other crap is just nonsense and take away from the real report.
also at least these teens are tired of seeing a fat america and are doing somethign about it so leave the rest alone
Don't ignore the 100% eating which adds "fuel" to the muscles and destroys their life
Here's a question to ask yourselves so called "EXPERTS" would you rather deal with OBESE heart attack inducing kids or those who thrive to to face on a generation that notices the problem and tries to better them selves and set a standard for better health around their peers?
You guys do realize protein is just a macronutrient...correct? It is food.
This article is absolute rubbish.
...
Does this article imply that protein powders are "gateway drugs" to steroids?
On a cold Friday afternoon, I had come home from school. I had been thinking of the gym all day. I was hungry, didn't have any lunch. In fact, I didn't eat because I spent the money. For the past month I was saving up for something. Something special which I bought at GNC. I was surprised they didn't ask for ID; I was pretty sure the cashier noticed how nervous I was. Anyways, my mom asked my how my day was when I got home, but I ignored her. I have more important things to do. I run to the bathroom and unpack my bag. In my school bag is a white plastic bag from GNC. I open the bag, first removing the receipt and flushing it down the toilet to get rid of the evidence. My heart was racing now. I unpack the creatine monster from the bag.
I wonder what people will be asking me when they see that I will be 50lbs heavier. Should I say I was just eating a lot? I remove the label from the tub and tear it into a thousand small pieces. I flush that down the toilet, too. It is time now. I run up to my room when my mom ask me what I am holding. I panic, sweat drips down my forehead and my teeth chatter. "Mom, it's just for a school project". "What project?" "I don't know mom I just started it!". A tear runs down my cheek. I run upstairs and open the creatine, scooping upservings into a clear water bottle. What have I gotten myself into? I fill it with water and drink it. There is no turning back now. The creatine monster is inside me now, it will control me. What should I do if I die? I cant let my family know about this.
I open the creatine tub and throw it all out the window; a white cloud of mysterious dust sparkles into the wind so graciously. I feel the substance taking control of me; I am now the monster. I walk downstairs, its time to work out; time to get big. Now I worry, I don't want to get too big; people will think I use steroids. I do use steroids. No I don't. Creatine. All I see is the weights now, I am almost downstairs when I hear "Do you want a cookie I just baked". I know I do not have time for this **** now. "No mom I do not want a cookie" I walk in the basement and drop to my knees before the weights, tears running down my cheeks. I turn to the right and look at myself in the mirror.
Oh god, what have I done?
The gym, where I learned the truth about despair, as will you. There's a reason why the gym is the worst hell on earth... Creatine. Every man who has taken creatine over the centuries has looked up to the weights and imagined building muscle. So easy... So simple... And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true muscle growth without creatine. So, as I terrorize the weight room, I will feed its people creatine to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can grow so that you can watch them clamoring over each other to "bench tree fiddy." You can watch me torture an entire weight room and when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfill Ronnie Coleman's destiny... We will destroy the gym and then, when it is done and the gym is ashes, then you have my permission to die.
Someone help me!
lol @ protein shakes, creatine and amino acids being given negative connotations along the lines of steroids and HGH. Putting wallet draining snakes skin oil in the same boat as potent drugs that can cause severe problems if abused outside of medical supervision? Gooby, please. Protein supplements???? Take all the money you spend on "supplements" and put it into quality protein sources in the form of real food. Eggs, chicken, fish, lean beef, etc. is a far more enjoyable way to get your protein than choking down some chalky drink that is supposed to taste like chocolate. All natty is the way to go. U mad?
I was in wrestling (many years ago) in School, our coach told us Steroids can build bulk just like we heard, but you also will have testicles the size of peas and a penis just as useless. No One used roids on the team.