EL PASO – Inside the gym, the song “Stronger” by Kanye West plays in the background and the music motivates 16-year-old Alexander Jimenez to try harder to fit the mold of an ideal male body.
Jimenez, a high school sophomore, has trained every weekday at several local gyms vigorously since the age of nine for the purpose of staying healthy and looking trim. Day in and day out his efforts have paid off. Today he is the captain of the Franklin High School wrestling team that placed second at the state competition last month.
“I’ve been helping him since he was 9 years old,” said Daniel Alvarado, owner and head trainer of PUSH Fitness and Athletic Training, and Jimenez’s coach. “What moves him is that he’s always strived to be the best in whatever he does.”
Daniel Alvarado, owner and head trainer of PUSH Fitness and Athletic Training, with wrestlers. (Veronica Enriquez/Borderzine.com)
Most American males, like Jimenez, face strong societal pressure to achieve an unnatural and overdeveloped athletic body image. Whereas appearance has always been a concern for girls, society is now telling young men their masculinity depends on how much they can bench press and how many squats they can do.
“Saying someone is pure muscle… it’s almost unnatural,” said UTEP Kinesiology Lecturer Raul Zubia, explaining that bodies with a high percentage of muscle and a low percentage of fat can only be attainable with rigorous strength training and a proper diet.
“Any competitive bodybuilder has to be taking some kind of testosterone supplement if you want to be competitive,” said Zubia. “There is no way the human body can get that big, naturally.”
Today’s teenagers are bombarded with unrealistic body types in TV shows such as “The Bachelor” and “Survivor,” as well as from body sculpted actors like Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) and Taylor Lautner (Twilight). Health educators worry that media messages about what a “healthy” male body should look like makes teenagers more willing to use performance-enhancing drugs to improve the way their bodies look.
“The biggest thing is ‘Jersey Shore,’” said Cody Moss, a 17-yearold senior wrestler at Franklin High School. “People don’t like to admit it, but everyone wants to look like them.”
Although the public believes otherwise, Zubia said high school and college athletes are the least likely to take performance-enhancing supplements because of increased testing and scrutiny by athletic department school officials.
“Collegiate athletes are more regulated in steroid use, supplements, or performance enhancing drugs, because they get tested so often,” said Zubia. “You might think athletes are the ones taking them the most, but it’s actually those that are not regulated. It’s your normal kid just growing up that wants to look big.”
Some high school students say they assume some of their peers are taking supplements because of the way their bodies look.
“You see it in the hallways – guys walking around looking at their biceps, making sure they’re the biggest guy in the hallway,” said high school sophomore Anthony Camacho, 17.
A recent article published by the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that 41 percent of high school and middle school males and females have taken some or regularly take supplements to enhance their bodies.
“I’ve been noticing more muscular kids,” said Zubia, with “body fat percents in the three and four percent; we’re talking about 14 or 15 year old kids; extremely muscular. How is that even possible?”
Experts say that the hyper-muscular bodies seen in media are not physically possible without enhancements. At the same time, some teenagers, feeling pressure to look more muscular, begin to take various supplements such as steroids that are harmful to the human body.
“Scientific evidence (has shown) that they (steroids) are detrimental to our health,” Zubia said. “Big organizations like the America College of Sports Medicine even address that in publications. Definitely stay away from any steroid. Steroids for the purpose of enhancing (performance in) sports are (pure) testosterone or they enhance the production of testosterone in the body and those are the ones that have bad side effects for males and for females.”
Young men looking to ‘get jacked,’ should consider the adverse effects of what they are adding to their body before they take any type of supplement, health experts said.
“I would advice them to do their own research before taking anything, and resist the urge to look big right away,” Zubia said. “You can do it with creatine and with protein, but don’t mess with your hormones, especially testosterone.”
The Nationwide Children’s Hospital also advises on their website that teens should establish realistic goals consistent with their physical abilities and emotional maturity. For Jimenez, the journey of staying true to the sport of wrestling and a non-adulterated body has not been an easy one but he believes he is an example of a healthy and fit lifestyle.
“There is pressure,’’ to look a certain way, Jimenez said. “But the habits we have today are what sets us straight for tomorrow.”
