Today, while there are so many natural supplements you can take, why are there athletes on steroids? It really boils down to the fact that they believe that the steroids will give them the results they can't get any other way.
Unfortunately they turn a blind eye to the potentially serious side effects you can get from steroid use.
We have Russia at least partially to thank for the use of steroids today.
In the 1950's Russian athletes were given testosterone and starting dominating the international arena of sports events.
If you kept track of the development of things, you'll know that the Russian men were given so much testosterone that many developed large prostrates.
This meant they needed to use catheters to be able to urinate.
You could hardly tell some of the women were females and they even had to have chromosome tests! For awhile in the United States bodybuilders were looked at as being kind of weird.
When they started becoming popular was after Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie, "Pumping Iron".
All of a sudden, weight lifting became the newest rage and people started heading to the gyms and health clubs to work out.
That's where a lot of them got introduced to steroid use.
The "bigger, the better" was the motto and steroids seemed to be the answer as the quickest way to get there.
Steroid use by young people spread from college to high school, and even junior high school.
Athletes in other sports used steroids because they wanted to build muscle to enhance their performance in their chosen sport.
Steroid use became common in track, football, baseball and other sports other than weight lifting.
There's been lots of news about athletes on steroids, possibly most notably among football players.
Unfortunately penalties and fines and disqualifications haven't been enough to deter some athletes from continuing to use the illegal drug.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is young people who use steroids without fully understanding the serious side effects associated with them.
They may suffer irreversible and unwanted changes to their bodies as well as other health problems.
Parents should be aware of the widespread use of steroids and educate their children about the damage they can do to their bodies by using them.
Certainly many young people idolize athletes on steroids and may seek to imitate them to their harm.