There has always been a controversy surrounding growth hormones and steroids, specifically with those who are fully grown and are athletes performing on higher levels. But what about those still young and not quite at that high-performing level? Should they be allowed to use these performance-enhancing hormones that will change the way they physically develop?
My original thought was, of course not! Why should it be legal for athletes of any age to take performance-enhancing substances? It seemed like common sense to ban these substances for athletes of any age if they give them the upper hand in competition, at least until I watched the Men’s Football World Cup. What does the World Cup have to do with any of this? Well, after Argentina won, I looked a little into Messi’s background, and I realized that he was injected with growth hormones as a child because he had a growth hormone deficiency. After discovering this I understood why it’s sometimes legal for young athletes to take growth hormones, but that brought up another issue: nothing is stopping certain young athletes who don’t suffer from growth hormone deficiencies from taking these shots.
Recently it was brought to light that people on my team were taking growth hormone shots. Because of this, they had grown a mind-blowing amount and had gotten extremely strong in an insanely short amount of time. This did not sit right with many of the skaters and parents on our team. For Messi, taking growth shots was justified by his deficiency, but for these kids they were healthy and one was even above average in size. Messi was also performing at a higher level, and for him, shots were medically necessary if he wanted to continue to play at the level he was playing. For the skater, he wasn’t even very fast at the time he started taking the shots, but he’s fast now because of the advantage he’s been given. It’s hard skating with someone when you know that they’ve been given an unfair advantage. It’s especially hard when they get faster than you and you know that it’s not because of hard work, but because of money.
Few people have the money to pay for these growth shots which gives those who can buy these shots an even bigger advantage. If growth shots were easily affordable and accessible, I could understand why they would be legal since many high-performing athletes would have access to them, but they’re not.
Not only are growth hormones expensive and performance enhancing which give athletes who use them an unfair advantage, but some are also undetectable on drug tests. The mother of the athletes who use growth hormones on a skating team that I know explicitly said when confronted that it was okay for her kids to take these shots since they aren’t detectable. Just because you can get away with something doesn’t always mean that it’s the right thing to do. Hearing this piece of information was deeply upsetting for many of the teammates since the use of growth hormones doesn’t only ruin the reputations of those who take them, but it also destroys the reputation of the user’s coach.
The use of growth hormones gives those who use them an unfair advantage over the rest of the field unless they’re medically necessary. I believe that we need to implement rules and regulations that apply to all sports and people of all ages. The loose laws surrounding the use of growth hormones are easy to walk around, and it is obvious that people in many different sports use them, especially since many of them aren’t detectable on drug tests. We should also develop ways of testing for traces of the hormones so that no one can get away with this misuse of an important drug.
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