Trending Bodybuilding Business Playing Havoc with Lives

Bodybuilding Business: Growing Apathy Towards Community Welfare

Excessive consumption of steroids to build a muscular body killed a 23-year-old gym trainer in Noida last month. The youth had been taking injections of steroids for past two years and a week before his death he took a heavy dose of steroids and suddenly his condition started deteriorating. His heart was badly affected due to excessive intake of steroids and after a three days’ struggle in hospital he lost his life. To our dismay, this is not the first case of loss of a young life due to growing trends and fascination for six-packs abs body among teenagers and youth. Not just in India but across the globe youngsters fall prey to this obsession of body building and craze for a muscular body faster and quicker and suffer from serious health issues and sometimes lose their lives. Let’s read another story from Mumbai. Naved Jamil Khan, a young body builder from Thane District had lost his life on the day of a Body Building Competition, he was about to take part in because of suspected excessive intake of steroids. He was diagnosed with Hepatitis B and increased levels of cortisol (a steroid hormone) were detected in his body which damaged his liver and he died on the same day he was expecting a grand win for himself.

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The Bodybuilding Business-

The Bodybuilding industry is one of the fastest emerging industries in India in the past decade. Earlier when people discussed about muscles and bodybuilding it was with reference to only for the wrestlers and pahalwans but with a surge in six-packs abs heroes in Bollywood, the trend of muscular body became so popular that thousands of strength- training centers and gyms started mushrooming in our country and India is now poise to become one of the world’s largest bodybuilding meccas. With the spike in health- training centers, the supplements and drug manufacturing companies were also keen to mark their presence in Indian market and introduced their products to large crowds of youth who were dreaming of heart-slaying, shirtless physiques and hence, readily inclined towards bodybuilding supplements, synthetic hormones and steroids.

What are Bodybuilding Steroids?-

These bodybuilding supplements or steroids are synthetic hormones similar to the male sex hormone testosterone. The steroids which are used to increase muscle mass and decrease fat are known as anabolic steroids; they are called performance-enhancing drugs and can cause adverse effects on human body; if not taken under a nutritionist’s supervision.  Thousands of people take supplements anticipating their health benefits such as weight loss, weight gain or muscle building failing to understand the toll they take on one’s health and normal metabolic functions of the body. To gain a bulky, muscular body many youngsters start the illegal and unmonitored use of steroids and become ‘abusers’. There are different kinds of steroids like; anadrol, oxandrin, dianabol, winstrol, deca-durabolin and equipoise. People use various slang terms to buy them illegally for example ‘roids or juice’. The supplement stores charge heavy money to provide these drugs which are used in form of pills, injections and protein shakes. For faster results abusers generally start stacking i. e. taking two or more kinds of steroids at one time. While consuming steroids, abusers bulk up, biceps bulge, abs ripple and quads balloon but the internal effects on body functioning can be fatal; sometimes the damage is irreversible.

 

 

The hazardous effects of steroids on human body-

The unsupervised consumption of anabolic steroids can lead to major health issues like kidney failure, liver damage, heart strokes and even development of tumors in body.  Steroids can weaken the immune system and the body becomes prone to other infections and serious diseases. Most of the time hypodermic needles are used to inject these hormones into body which increases the risk of HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. When steroids reach to different organs they stimulate protein growth in individual cells. They can cause livers to grow tumors; develop cancer and cysts and hearts to clog up. These cysts and tumors can rupture causing internal bleeding and ultimately death. Not the body alone, steroids take control of mind also and result into mood swings, violent behaviour and cruelty in users since they attack on the limbic system of brain which balances moods and emotions of a person. Gradually steroids intake leads to mania, delusions, and hyper aggression. It has been observed that steroids have disfiguring effects on human body such as greasy hair or baldness and disturb the hormone balance. They can even shorten the life span of the user.

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How to control this problem-

The bodybuilding trend can be considered a serious problem that we have been suffering for a decade. Anyone can open a gym without adequate training and well qualified instructors. They have little knowledge of body building and openly flout the norms for opening gyms and giving health training. Lack of certified trainers and lower moral and ethical values of gym owners plunge them into money minting by easier and illegal sources. It is found that they encourage young minds to intake steroids to attain a muscular body just in few weeks. There should be strict policies to control the violations by gym instructors and fitness trainers. Even stringent laws should be made to curb the open sale of such hormones. There must be a regulatory framework to monitor the activities of gyms as hundreds of gyms across the nation sell these illegal drugs which are smuggled in. The abuse of steroids by teenagers and young generation is a growing threat to mental and physical health. These centers should be governed by a regulatory board or authority. It’s high time government should set up Regulatory Boards to keep an eye on such health training centers. Lack of self motivation, discipline and community welfare is rampant in every sphere of human life, be it social, moral, education or even in fitness. Everyone wants six-packs abs but can’t be consistent and committed to practice hard for the same; gym owners also consider this business as any other business and the growing apathy towards their clients’ health is enough to say that they are totally blind and indifferent towards the health and mental wellness of their fitness enthusiasts.  

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Time to think and answer:

Can a business dealing with health and fitness of people be run with the same mindset as any other business?

Aren’t ethics or moral obligations required when people trust you for taking care of their bodies?