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“This is my son,” said the man, as he walked into my clinic, “He is a district level sprinter. He is to compete at the state interschool athletics meet. Can you give me a certificate saying he is 16 years old?
“Don’t you have a birth certificate?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the man, “According to that he has completed 19 and will have to compete in another age division”.
“Is he 19 years old?”
“Yes” confessed the father, “he started school late. Also his coach feels that he is underweight and his muscles are not well developed. He gets tired easily. So he wants him to take these vitamins and supplements.”
He produced a plastic bag that contained a mini pharmacy: capsules with vitamins and minerals in mega doses, pills containing anabolic steroids and testosterone, a jar of a “food supplement” with high doses of amino acids and creatine and even injections of long-acting testosterone. Apparently the entire team, including the girls, were on these supplements and injections!
Athletes have to practice day in and out for years to build up stamina and muscle to excel in their chosen sport. There are no short-cuts. Some of our young athletes are naturally talented and are spotted by coaches at the school level. Others have parents who pay for coaches and training. After all, if you can compete in a sport at the national level, it will guarantee you a place at college (even with lower marks) and a job under the “sports quota”.
In India, the focus is on academics since it is thought to be the only thing that will help a child get a good job. Many parents feel that sports are a waste of time and money. After all, how many Dhonis or Milkha Singhs does the country produce? This means that many talented children do not achieve their potential in sports.
So with no access to (or interest from) the talented, coaches look for shortcuts to produce national level athletes. One way is to fudge the age. A 19-year-old always has a good chance of performing better than a 14-year-old. The other is doping. Last year, the International Association of Athletics Federation caught 52 Indians doping. Even more frightening, in last year’s National Schools Championship, 11 student athletes were caught doping.
Often the athlete and the parents are ignorant about what is there in the health supplement prescribed by the coach. Creatine powder is one of the things widely used by coaches as it is believed to speed up recovery and increase muscle mass and strength. Since creatine occurs in the body naturally, it is thought to be harmless but the truth is very different. Consuming creatine leads to weight gain and irreparable kidney damage.
Steroids and steroid precursors (usually medications ending with “abol”) and DHEA (d ehydroepiandrosterone, a hormone) are misused to better performance. They, however, also cause pimples, damage the heart and liver, precipitate diabetes and high blood pressure and cause short stature by interfering with bone growth. Girls can also develop a deep voice and become hairy and sterile.
No one can progress in the chosen field (even if it is only lifting weight in the local gym) without putting in hard work. If you take dangerous supplements as a shortcut to success, you will either be caught or the dangerous side effects will quickly cut short your career and perhaps even your life. If parents and athletes knew what exactly they were consuming in their “health supplements” and what the long-term effects were, most of them would probably decide not to take this “short-cut” and choose to work hard.
An athlete’s diet needs to have adequate calories and proteins. The calorific requirement can be roughly calculated by multiplying the ideal weight in pounds by 13. Then add the calories expended in the sport. Running is 350-500 calories an hour, swimming 550-600 and weightlifting 450-500 calories. Depending on the intensity of the training, these calories can be added to the daily requirement. Infants require about 10gm of protein, teenage boys 50gm, girls 46gm, adult males 55gm and women 45gm a day. Meat, fish, eggs, nuts and dairy products are good and healthy sources.
Sports is about developing personality, dedication and discipline in children. It is not about winning by any means, fair or foul. It is about instilling ethics, not chasing short-term gains by a devious route at the cost of future health.
Dr Gita Mathai is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore. Questions on health issues may be emailed to her at yourhealthgm@yahoo.co.in
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