Adolescent Anabolic Steroid Use, Gender, Physical Activity, and Other Problem Behaviors

Abstract

To test the comparative value of strain theory and problem behavior theory as explanations of adolescent anabolic steroid use, this study examined gender-specific relationships among steroid use, physical activity, and other problem behaviors. Based on the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative sample of over 16,000 U.S. public and private high school students, binge drinking, cocaine use, fighting, and sexual risk-taking were associated with higher odds of lifetime steroid use. In gender-specific analyses, steroid use was strongly associated with female fighting and smokeless tobacco use as well as male sexual risk. Neither athletic participation nor strength conditioning predicted odds of steroid use after controlling for problem behaviors, nor did steroid-using athletes report more frequent use than steroid-using nonathletes. The study's limitations and policy implications were noted. These data suggest that other problem behaviors such as substance use, fighting, and sexual risk are better predictors of adolescent steroid use than physical activity. Interventions to prevent steroid use should not be limited to male participants in organized sports programs, but should also target adolescents identified as at risk for other problem behaviors.

Corticotropin-Releasing Factor Modulation of Forebrain GABAergic Transmission has a Pivotal Role in the Expression of Anabolic Steroid-Induced Anxiety in the Female Mouse

“…The prevalence of illicit self-administration of supratherapeutic doses of AAS has been estimated to be approximately 0.5% of adolescent girls and 2% of adolescent boys (Bahrke et al, 2000;Miller et al, 2005;Johnston et al, 2009). In both adults and adolescents, AAS use has been associated with changes in behavior, including anxiety, irritability, poor impulse control, and mood fluctuations, in addition to their actions on physique and performance (Annitto and Layman, 1980;Pope and Katz, 1988;Burnett and Kleiman, 1994;Cooper et al, 1996;Franke and Berendonk, 1997;Rashid, 2000;Pagonis et al, 2006).…”

Anabolic steroid abuse among teenage girls: An illusory problem?

“…All of these studies used anonymous or confidential questionnaires; none, to our knowledge, provided an explicit definition of AAS, and none cautioned respondents that AAS should not be confused with corticosteroids or sports supplements. Several additional studies (Coker et al, 2000;Durant et al, ,1999Grunbaum et al, 1998;Middleman et al, 1995;Miller et al, 2005;Zullig et al, 2001), utilized CDC data from individual regions; these studies by definition have the same flaws as the national CDC studies already discussed, and hence are omitted from Table 3. Overall, therefore, it would follow that most estimates of AAS use among high-school girls should be greatly inflated by false-positives.…”

Is There an Association between the Use of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids and Criminality?

“…These steroids were originally used by athletes but are now used by a far wider range of groups outside of sport and athletics [2,3] . The majority of users are male [4,5] . It has been shown that the use of AAS is often combined with the use of alcohol [6][7][8] and other drugs of abuse [9][10][11] .…”