Hippo Manchester
September 1, 2005

The danger of steroids

Rutstein tell-all good for any athlete or coach out there

By Abby Ashey

The Steroid Deceit: A Body Worth Dying For, by Jeff Rutstein, Custom Fitness, 2005, 108 pages

Do you know the kind of danger that some bodybuilders put themselves in? I didn’t until I took a look at Jeff Rutstein’s book, The Steroid Deceit. 

Rutstein is a former bodybuilder who knows a lot about the drug due to an addiction that led to a downward spiral. Rutstein takes you through his trials and tribulations with steroids via his book and also incorporates some alarming statistics. 

This book is a must-read for anyone trying to get jacked and for coaches at junior high, high school, collegiate level and professional level. Athletes should definitely read this book, users or not.

Rutstein shines the light on an alarming statistic, that between six and 11 percent of high school males and between two and five percent of high school females are currently using steroids. If that doesn’t alarm you I’ll put it in a more alarming way: that’s between half a million and one million high school students. 

That would be great if steroids weren’t bad for you. We’d have some of the best young athletes here in America.

Rutstein highlights each of the most well-known side effects of steroid use but spares the reader the entire list of 70 physical/psychological effects.  In one case, in Germany, a track-and-field star was given steroids without her knowing and it eventually led to a permanent sex change. She is now a he. 

Not only does the book outline the ins and outs of steriod use but Rutstein goes into his own personal highs and lows such as a broken nose due to “roid rage” and a run-in with his mom when she found the needles he used to inject horse steroids. 

Rutstein’s examples barely skim the surface of what can happen, and the book shows this because he compares his own problems with other, more severe, issues,  such as a 16-year-old stabbing to death his 14-year-old girlfriend. That kid is in jail for the rest of his long life. Or the married body-builder couple — the wife shot the husband because he paid too much for chicken.

This book is quite like a really long article you would find in a health magazine but it’s a quick and easy read that anyone in the above fields should invest a couple hours in.