Challenging medicine? Bodybuilding, drugs and risk (original) (raw)
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Drug-Taking, ‘Risk Boundaries’ and Social Identity: Bodybuilders’ Talk about Ephedrine and Nubain
Sociological Research Online, 2000
The instrumental use of steroids and analogous drugs is a normalised practice in bodybuilding subculture. However, in a society where bodily health and lifestyle are conjoined, such risk-taking carries negative connotations. Bodybuilders using drugs for purposes of physique enhancement are able to resist accusations of opprobrium and maintain competent social identity by drawing a sharp contrast between themselves and ‘junkies’. This self-serving differentiation appears untenable, however, when bodybuilders take Ephedrine and Nubain: drugs that may be compared respectively and unfavourably to amphetamines and heroin. Using qualitative data, this paper considers the variable status of Ephedrine and Nubain as risk boundaries among bodybuilders. In operating as risk boundaries, these drugs signify limits beyond which ‘sensible’ drug-using bodybuilders should not venture. As social constructs, risk boundaries are also contingent. Correspondingly, bodybuilders using Ephedrine and Nubain ...
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHICAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF BODYBUILDING: A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS FROM SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY STUDIES (STS), 2024
ABSTRACT: since the 20th century bodybuilding has been an object of study that interests and challenges researchers in the sociology of sport (see Conquet, 2014; Tajrobehkar, 2016; Wellman, 2020) and, recently, in the philosophy of sport (see Aranyosi, 2017; Madej, 2021; Worthen, 2016). However, many of its problems are little known in the orthodox philosophical literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to contribute from STS studies to the posing and discussion of the central ethical and social problems of bodybuilding by contributing to the philosophy of sport or the philosophy of body techniques. Therefore, I will plant the following problems in relation to bodybuilding: gender and sexism; racism, ableism and eugenics; and lastly, fatphobia. Finally, I propose that many of these problems are generated from the indiscriminate use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) within this sport subculture. In this sense, a precautionary framework (epistemic values, moral values, hormonal benefit principle and sports precautionary principle) is proposed from STS studies with the aim of regulating their use, avoiding adverse effects in individuals who are not professional bodybuilders.
Doping Oneself Cautiously : A Critical Approach of Healthism
2015
This article studies the questions on doping and on the fight against doping in reference to healthism. One can interpret these social activities as expressions of health practices reshaping and strengthening the relations between patients, their health and the medical staff. The analysis of three chat forums (we have examined more than 244,000 messages altogether), highlights on the one hand, that powers cannot be identified in a permanent way and, on the other hand, that the Internet users are leading inquiries collectively. A pragmatics of powers interested in the asymmetries of “grips/grasps” and of “influence” (Chateauraynaud, 2015) allows us eventually to describe subtly these complex processes.
Vocabularies of motive for illicit steroid use among bodybuilders
Social Science & Medicine, 2002
Illicit steroid use, for purposes of performance and physique enhancement, is widely deemed unnecessary, wrong and dangerous. Such activity would appear especially foolhardy when engaged in by non-professional athletes who otherwise adhere to 'healthy' exercise regimens. Here a gap exists between many illicit steroid users' actions and societal expectations. Using qualitative data generated in South Wales, this paper explores bodybuilders' vocabularies of motive for illicit steroid use. These accounts which justified, rather than excused, steroid use were predominant during question situations between the participant observer and the researched. In supporting the fundamental tenets of their drug subculture, and as part of the underlying negotiation of self-identity, respondents espoused three main justifications for their own and/or other bodybuilders' illicit steroid use; namely: self-fulfilment accounts, condemnation of condemners and a denial of injury. Here steroid use was rationalised as a legitimate means to an end, observers passing negative judgements were rejected and it was claimed steroids do not (seriously) harm the user's health or threaten society more generally. These vocabularies of motive, acquired and honoured within bodybuilding settings, comprise a complex of subjective meanings which seem to the actor to be an adequate ground for the conduct in question. Similar to other sociological studies, this paper states that it is imperative to explore the social meanings which illicit drug users attach to their 'risk' practices. Without these understandings, researchers and health promoters may struggle to appreciate fully why illicit drug users behave as they do.
Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2019
Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are the drug of choice in many cultures of the UK. Whilst there is an abundance of evidence relating to the physiological (Dodge and Hoagland, 2011) and psychological (Ip, et al., 2012) effects of steroid abuse on the individual, surprisingly there is a paucity of information relating to the perspectives of steroid users regarding the social impact of steroid use on self and society. The lack of data from steroid users has implications for forensic and legal medicine. Specifically, evidence is limited in terms of the user's voice. This is a crucial omission; the unheard voices of steroid users have much to offer into future research. 24 IPED using participants (using substituted names to protect anonymity), engaged in semi structured interviews to discuss their own personal usage, culture issues, social media and more.
Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 2019
The widespread availability of doping and its growing prevalence among fitness groups has contributed greatly to the realization of an emergent public health issue. Emanating from an ethnographic study in Sweden, the purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the processes involved in becoming and “unbecoming” a fitness doping user. The study employs a cultural and sociological perspective as its theoretical framework and discusses how the participating users gradually develop their knowledge about the drugs and how the process of becoming a user is negotiated in relation to ideas and ideals concerning health, gender, and individual freedom and Swedish law. Regarding exit processes, (re)entering into what is perceived to be an ordinary “normal” life was seldom a straightforward process. To understand the complex and sometimes complicated transition processes involved in becoming respectively unbecoming a fitness doper, the results highlight the limitations of using stage mode...
Bodybuilders’ accounts of synthol use: The construction of lay expertise online
Synthol is an injectable oil used by bodybuilders to make muscles appear bigger. Widely available on the Internet, it is reported to carry a wide range of health risks and side effects such as localised skin problems, nerve damage and oil filled cysts, as well as muscle damage and the development of scar tissue. Given the tension between health risk and quick muscle enlargement, how lay users explain and justify their synthol intake becomes an important question. Drawing on discourse analysis, we focus on how lay expertise is worked up by users in the absence of available specialist knowledge by invoking medical and pharmaceutical discourses as legitimation, providing novices with support, gaining trust through positive personal narratives and thus gaining credibility as experts. Results have clear implications for health promotion interventions with bodybuilders.
Patterns of anabolic-androgenic steroid use, aesthetic doping, and body image within the male Brazilian bodybuilding culture: an ethnographic approach., 2023
The image of overly muscular bodies may appear to those not familiar with this bodybuilding culture, that muscle is the symbol of masculinity. Much of the time, however, the pursuit of the ideal body, the result of focused discipline to reach the ultimate muscular shape, is often confounded by the concomitant use of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS). The purpose of the present study was to investigate how ergogenic aids, in particular AAS, are included within the culture of bodybuilding in relationship to aesthetics, body image, and health risks. Using qualitative data, generated during an ethnographic investigation of the male bodybuilding culture in the city of Recife, Brazil. Including interviews, documentation of events, and field notes. The interviewees consisted of 11 males from the gyms. In addition, narcissism, and the pattern of AAS use are noted, since they play a significant role in the bodybuilding culture. Keywords: aesthetic doping, anabolic-androgenic steroids, toxicity, health risks, bodybuilding
Social Sciences
This article describes and analyses the historical development of gym and fitness culture in general and doping use in this context in particular. Theoretically, the paper utilises the concept of subculture and explores how a subcultural response can be used analytically in relation to processes of cultural normalisation as well as marginalisation. The focus is on historical and symbolic negotiations that have occurred over time, between perceived expressions of extreme body cultures and sociocultural transformations in society—with a perspective on fitness doping in public discourse. Several distinct phases in the history of fitness doping are identified. First, there is an introductory phase in the mid-1950s, in which there is an optimism connected to modernity and thoughts about scientifically-engineered bodies. Secondly, in the 1960s and 70s, a distinct bodybuilding subculture is developed, cultivating previously unseen muscular male bodies. Thirdly, there is a critical phase in...
Sport Education and Society, 2018
Sociological investigations into the athlete-medical practitioner relationship are scarce due to medical bias for positivist epistemologies. The aim of this research was to identify the scope and purpose of medical interventions for four athletes, within the context of social processes that enable medicine to claim athletic bodies as objects of practice and performance. The role and function of power in the athlete-medical doctor transaction and athlete embodiment were also of interest. Using a story-analyst approach grounded in narrative analysis, the ideologies of 'slim to win' and 'performance' were identified as the impetus for the athletes seeking the expertise of doctors. Doctors were positioned as accomplices in 'slim to win' and 'performance' ideologies within the athletes' stories, which influenced medical practices and compromised athlete health. Disciplinary power was enacted when the doctors observed, corrected and manipulated the athletes' bodies through medical practice. Athletes also had agency through renegotiating the meaning of the 'treatment' process by reconfiguring medical doctor's disciplinary power as forms of empowerment knowledge. This research highlights the complex nature of the athlete-medical doctor transaction and how these encounters can be productive and oppressive for athletes.