Weight wars: hormones/metabolism.

[RoNNy THe BuLL]

Want biceps to rival The Rock's? You're not alone. The thirst for bulging muscles is on the rise--and so is the use of anabotic steroids , illegal and dangerous muscle-building drugs. "More than 500,000 eighth-and tenth-graders now use steroids ," says Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Anabolic steroids--high doses of the male sex hormone testosterone --increase lean muscle mass. The drugs signal young body cells to rapidly mature into muscle cells rather than fat cells. But getting ripped with steroids comes with a big price for boys: side effects like shrunken testicles, breast development, acne, premature balding, uncontrolled aggression, even death. Girls who take steroids can develop permanent facial hair and deepened voices. Worth it?

DYING TO BE THIN While thousands of American teens are obsessed with becoming buff, another 5 to 10 million are starving themselves, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The condition is called anorexia nervosa. "One study shows that young girls are more frightened of being fat than they are of their parents dying or a nuclear holocaust," says Dr. Ira Sacker, head of the Eating Disorders Clinic at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Anorexics deeply fear gaining weight, so they don't eat enough. But the body demands food for energy, to build tissue, and--above all--to survive. Adequate food intake is especially critical during the teen years. "You experience your second-fastest growth spurt during puberty," says psychologist Sylvia Rimm, author of See Jane Win. "You need nutrients to feed that growth."

To learn more about eating disorders, visit

www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Scholastic, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

[groverman1]

Man that is exactly where AS gets a bad rap. Kids injecting all kinds of **** without knowing anything about the basics of steroids .

[RoNNy THe BuLL]

Yeah, I agree bro. BS.

[bornbad71]

DYING TO BE THIN While thousands of American teens are obsessed with becoming buff, another 5 to 10 million are starving themselves, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The condition is called anorexia nervosa. "One study shows that young girls are more frightened of being fat than they are of their parents dying or a nuclear holocaust," says Dr. Ira Sacker, head of the Eating Disorders Clinic at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Anorexics deeply fear gaining weight, so they don't eat enough. But the body demands food for energy, to build tissue, and--above all--to survive. Adequate food intake is especially critical during the teen years. "You experience your second-fastest growth spurt during puberty," says psychologist Sylvia Rimm, author of See Jane Win. "You need nutrients to feed that growth."

To learn more about eating disorders, visit

www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Scholastic, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

Bro I agree with that about teens wanting to be thin.......I think it has something to do with all the books they look at...all the skinny models and stuff.....they younger teens just don't see how thin the models arms and legs are......where is the friggin muscle tone?

[spywizard]

Just keeping up my post count

said i would read it..

actually it's all true.............

[Elliot]

Man there are so many little children in my gym that run around on roid rages.. really sad sight..

[RoNNy THe BuLL]

Not even that,
They think it's a quick fix. That's bull****. They get all bloated and think they're the next Brock Lesnar. Imma fix 'em up, no worries. Imma fix 'em up...

Half of "them" don't even know about Anti-E's, Clomid or many of the unlisted side effects that we all choose to ignore. But who are we, we're the guys they get their **** from and we're the guys they over hear 'praising' the good sauce...small world eh. I guess I gotta fix ME up.

[Carlos_E]

RoNNy THe BuLL keep posting. This is interesting stuff.

[Lord Humungous]

Ya know, I keep hearing this "muscle building is on the rise" and everywhere people are supposedly trying to get huge, but I don't see it.

People look at me and stare....gawk is more like it, like I'm a freak of nature. And I'm not THAT big. (Maybe I'm just ugly as hell? ROFL)

Seriously though, most people still want to look like a sack of marbles with sticks for arms and legs. They wanna eat crap and lay around and watch tv with other sacks of sh1t.

If muscle building gets into mainstream media again, they'll just demonize us again. We're a threat to thier way of life. We make them look lazy, and they are (generally speaking). That's why people can let go of the pipe dream of legalizing steroids . You have a better chance of legalizing crack.

Sorry, took a left turn there.....

-LH

[Danielle]

"One study shows that young girls are more frightened of being fat than they are of their parents dying or a nuclear holocaust," says Dr. Ira Sacker

i truthfully dont see this statement as that unusual or out of the ordinary..

you must think of it from a 15-year-old girls point of view....i mean at 15, do you really imagine your parents dieing?.....at that age, your so naive, you probably dont think they will ever die.......you just dont think of stuff like that.......you dont think stuff like that happens (i mean rare cases, of course......but im talking about the norm.)......and a nuclear holocaust....whats that to a young girl??!.......lol, ya know..........

but being thing, well thats all around you.........ibeing overweight is probably a young girls biggest fear........i mean look at the popular cheerleaders...they are all pretty, thin, have the boyfriends.......skinny girls are what brace all of the Teen magazines........thats all they see........so thats exactly what they want.......

sad but true.......but thats how it is today