Study Says 7 Percent of Seventh Grade Girls Use Steroids, By: Michael David Smith

June 6th 2007

I don't believe the results of this study. I realize that's a bit of hubris on my part, as the researchers have done the research, and I've just read the articles about the research.

I'm sure Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, knows what he's doing, but his conclusion can't possibly be correct:

In the study, Goldberg and his colleagues collected data on anabolic steroid use among teen girls using a national sample of U.S. high schools done in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the survey, 7,544 teen girls in grades nine through 12 answered questions about sports participation, steroids, ecstasy use and other illegal or unhealthy behaviors.

"In seventh grade, over 7 percent admitted steroid use," Goldberg said.

There's just no way that's true. In a middle schools with 250 girls, 17 or 18 have used anabolic steroids?

My theory is that this is based on self-reporting, and that most of these girls don't know what steroids are. The girls who said they used steroids probably used diet pills and don't know that they're not the same thing as steroids. If that many girls are using diet pills, that's noteworthy and could be the sign of a significant public health problem. But if 7 percent of seventh grade girls say they use steroids, that tells me that 7 percent of seventh grade girls don't know what steroids are.

 

are. The girls who said they used steroids probably used diet pills and don't