
Even though ancient athletes
used herbs and certain foods (such as
meat) to enhance their performance, anabolic steroids were first known
to be used at the 1954 World Weightlifting Championships by the
Soviets. The East Germans weren’t far behind in regimented steroid
used. The Olympic athletes from the United States were soon to follow
as well. At this time, the Olympic committees banned the use of
steroids in its athletes. As soon as athletes started getting “caught”
using steroids, athletes and their counterparts started developing ways
to get around the bans set upon them by the Olympic Committee as well
as professional sports organizations and so the battle began. By the
end of the 20th century, steroid use was banned in almost every sport,
but still widely used, even in by high school athletes.
High school athletes do use anabolic steroids and don’t seem to respond
to scare tactics to keep them from using them. Surveys have shown that
approximately four to six percent of high school athletes have used
steroids and anabolic steroids
[1]at some
point
and this percentage seems have been holding strong for the past twenty
years (Center for Disease Control and Prevention study) meaning that
use is neither as widespread as some media outlets imply nor is use by
this group increasing in prevalence.
[2]
Baseball is quite well-known to be a sport that harbors the use of
steroids as well. Because of the well-publicized “discovery” of Mark
McGuire’s bottle of Adrostendione in his locker, baseball major league
baseball employed an anti-drug policy complete with steroid testing
guidelines – the last of the country’s major sports organizations to do
so.
The first known use of steroids in the NFL was in 1987, but it seems
that steroid use in college and high school football was common well
before then by a common increase in body mass index from the early 70’s
through the late 80’s. The NFL shows similar increases as well.
So, steroids and anabolic steroids are still present in sports even
though the organizations do not allow them because since ancient times
people have wanted to enhance their performance to gain the prestige
that goes along with being great at what they do.