High School Athletes on Dope? Not Really, But Roughly 1/3 Uses "Performance Enhancing Supplements"
"Don't you take those steroids!" Does this remind you of your mother, when, back in high school, you bought your first tub of creatine monohydrate ? Recent doping "scandals" have, yet again, raised the awareness, or should I say panicky fear of parents and coaches that their children and wards are going to be delinquent, when they save their allowances for a shopping spree at the local GNC. Accordingly, many of them will not be happy to hear that a recent study published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research ( Piattolly. 2011 ) found that "[a]lmost a third [32.2%] of the high school sample surveyed reported using nutritional or performance enhancement supplements." Figure 1: Type of performance enhancing supplement used by high school athletes (data adapted from Piattolly. 2011 ) Interestingly, of those 32.2% of the young athletes that reported using supplements, the majority were male (87%) and in the age group of 15-17 year-ol...