Teens turning to supplements

Magazines, TV shows and films are chock-full of toned women and muscle-bound men without an obvious trace of body fat. Although such bodies can be the product of intense diets, workout regimens, genetics, cosmetic surgery or even photo retouching, adolescents are trying to get those same physiques through dietary supplements, hormones and steroids.

In a new survey of 10,449 adolescents, ages 9 to 14, more than 12% of boys and 8% of girls reported that they had used a product to build muscles or improve shape in the last year, and 4.7% of boys and 1.6% of girls reported that they used them once or more a week.

Those adolescents who said they wanted more toned muscles or worked hard to look like people in movies, TV or magazines were more than three times as likely to use supplements to build muscle or improve their appearance as young people who did not.

Nearly as many boys had body image concerns as girls, said study author Alison Field, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, although such concerns are typically attributed to girls.

A third of girls and almost as many boys said they frequently thought about wanting more toned or defined muscles, according to the survey, which asked about supplement use, media exposure and body image.

“Men and boys are just as dissatisfied as girls,” said J. Kevin Thompson, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida who studies body image. Boys’ body-image problems have been under-studied because boys tend to focus on muscles, not weight. They don’t usually diet but seek high-protein, low-carbohydrate regimens, he said.

The widening gap between toned or muscular models and young people, who are often obese, is helping to drive the body-image problems, Field said. Because media portrayals are often heavily retouched, teens may be trying to reach an impossible ideal, she cautioned.

Thompson explained perceptions of body image as a spectrum. At one end are adolescents obsessed with media portrayals of an ideal body who turn to supplements or eating disorders; at the other end are teenagers frustrated with an uphill battle against obesity who ignore all media messages, even those that encourage healthy behavior, and become more overweight.

“Obesity is a huge problem. It’s always a balancing act of focusing on health and food and not focusing on the appearance of the individual so much,” Thompson said.

One limitation of the study is that it could only show a relationship between media images and supplement use, without showing that one caused the other, Field said.

The supplements included in the survey included creatine, amino acids, growth hormones, anabolic steroids and protein powders or shakes, which were the most common supplement used. The other supplements were used more often by boys and less often by girls, with 2% of the boys and only 0.3% of the girls reporting using nonprotein supplements to improve muscle appearance.

Although the risks of steroids are well known, many teens don’t know that over-the-counter supplements can also be risky, Field said.

Parents should be more careful about the negative comments they make about body shapes and weight in front of their children, boys and girls alike, Field said. “Children hear that and really begin to believe that that’s the ideal,” she said.

The survey was reported in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal Pediatrics.