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It is staggering to look at how many young men between the ages of 11 and 18 are on steroids. In Canada alone there are approximately 83,000 on them between these respective ages (Deacon, 53). Why are so many guys taking steroids at such a young age? The answer to that question is quite a simple one. All you have to do is take a quick look at the world around you. Sex sells, and that's the message that the media portrays to these boys. They look in a magazine, at a billboard, they watch T.V. and what do they see? These adolescents see a muscular young man, yet his body still looks like that of a bodybuilder. He has a "state-of-the-art physique" about him, with his bulging biceps, defined chest, and ripped stomach. This "beefcake" is portrayed to be "Mr. Saturday Night" whose body turns on the women and is a threat to the men around him. This image is exactly what these young boys want for their own lives and are willing to sacrifice anything to gain it (Deacon, 52 - 53). That is where the anabolic steroids come in to the picture. As any natural body builder knows, it is extremely difficult to gain muscle mass at a rapid rate. The process is a slow and gradual one. Most adolescent males do not want to wait; they want this "ripped" look overnight. Steroids come to be their answer to this goal. They take them in "cycles" by injecting the drug into the buttocks over a 4 - 6 week period (Anonymous Interview, May 2002). All the while they are lifting more than ever. Soon the young boy will start to like what he sees, and will continue using. It becomes a necessity to their everyday life; they are addicted. .
At what cost does this "wonder" drug come at? If you said none you are totally wrong. There is nothing free in this world, and steroids come with some incredibly serious after effects. Yet these adolescents continue to take them even after knowing what this is doing to them. You may ask why do they do this? There are an abundance of valid answers for this question; however there are only two that stick out as the most common.