We don't often think of the problems we go through as sociological issues, but in looking at the lives of similar groups of people we can see that many of the everyday problems of average people occur on a larger basis in our country. Some are easier to spot such as unemployment, even though it affects each person laid off once the rates get to a certain point it is obvious that the rates are due to economical factors not the characteristics of each individual (Mills 1). I have found that a problem that is becoming more evident in our everyday lives is a growing us of dangerous supplements in teenage athletes.
When I was thirteen I started in my first school sport. I became a wrestler. I fell in love with the sport. As I grew older it was something that dominated my life on and off the mat. I often found myself in class wishing I was wrestling. Naturally as I became older I also became more a competitive athlete as did the rest of my friends that wrestled or played any high school sport for that matter. Talk of being a competitor at state championships or who was favored at the next match often filled the hallways. Generally this competition appeared a good thing to me. I was a better athlete because of that competition. Being a wrestler I often heard people talk about "why would you do that to your body?" referring to dropping weight. At first the idea seemed absurd. The conversations with others about what supplements I was taking or not taking took place almost every day. As I spent more time conversing with wrestlers from other school I found the phenomenon was far from isolated to my school or even my state. Pills such as Xenadrine, DHEA, and Androstat where almost a necessary thing. To keep up with the bell curve of students taking the same things everyone "had to do it." Instead of sticking with these already dangerous or at the very least unhealthy pills people often felt pushed to try even bigger and better things.