Inga Erickson English IV Performance Enhancing Drugs 5/14/18 The Debate on Performance Enhancing Drugs A gust of fresh air whips through the room as the swimmer’s feet leave the block. The sound of the buzzer still rings out as the splash of the swimmer’s sleek body slides into the pool, echoing through the crowd. Faster and faster his body moves, arms and legs in perfect synchronization. Kicking hard and breathing quick, while appearing to the audience as though it were simply effortless. He enters the last leg of the race and the crowd goes wild. The most gold medals ever won by one person in the olympics. Michael Phelps touches the wall, his dream achieved, history made. Over time many have marveled at Phelp’s success, finding it …show more content…
People take steroids for a number of reasons including to increase muscle mass, improve athletic performance or to enhance physical appearance. Since steroids increase the amount of testosterone produced in the body, muscle mass is also multiplied. Because of the important role that muscle mass plays in an athlete’s performance, steroids can have the added benefit of providing athletes with better performance results. Therefore these people are able to compete and perform at a higher level. According to M. Lemouse, benefits of steroid use include increased muscular endurance, physical strength, sex drive, and facial hair growth (Lemouse, 2012). These are often qualities which prove desirable to many people from athletes to models. Because strength and physical appearance is so instrumental in the sport of bodybuilding, this profession has the largest draw for steroid use of any profession. Bodybuilding is more common amongst men, which lends to the fact that the percentage of steroid use of adolescent males tends to be up to 10 % higher than that of their female counterparts, this is according to a study conducted by APA Psycnet (Bahrke, et. al, 1998). This gap perpetuates into adult steroid use as well. The amount of importance put on physical appearance and athletic performance in today’s society, be it good or bad, lends itself to the pull of steroids throughout the