Rolling stone "hit": the venerable pop culture magazine attacks bodybuilding using few facts but plenty of tired old prejudices

Rolling Stone is no longer your father's magazine. Too bad.

As dependable purveyors of youth culture and hip sensibilities for decades, Rolling Stone has long been counted on to seek truth beyond conventional wisdom and anachronistic assumptions. Or so we thought. Now, the publication that once championed the narcotized musings of Hunter S. Thompson has given us "Killer Bods" (February 14, 2002), by Paul Solotaroff, a hit piece that disparages bodybuilding, the entire sports supplement industry and even the retailers who sell sports supplements. Teenagers, the article breathlessly warns, are being exploited and poisoned by greedy manufacturers. Guys who work out are, like, so into themselves. Bodybuilding is, like, so gross!

Sounding like a befuddled parent reading from a 'Just Say No" pamphlet, Solotaroff gives us a kind of "greatest hits" of antibodybuilding screeds. The article is packed with anecdotes and exaggerations in place of hard data, smirking condescension toward the harmless vanity of young bodybuilders and the blatant intellectual dishonesty of equating reckless illegal drug use with the consumption of legal over-the-counter substances.

Yes, it's well-written, but Solotaroff's finger-wagging and scolding have all the predictability of a Casey Kasem countdown. We've heard it all before, and we'll hear it all again, but let's go through the drill once more anyway and demythologize the sport of bodybuilding for those outsiders who fear the pump.

OLD NEWS IS STILL OLD NEWS

On the opening spread of the cunningly titled "Killer Bods," the subhead trumpets: "The $4 billion-a-year sport-supplement industry sells steroid substitutes and herbal speed to millions of teenage boys. It's all legal, true, but is it all safe?"

Yeah, it's safe.

Even if you imply otherwise by using loaded trigger words such as "steroid" and "speed," it's still safe. Sports supplements are not harmful if taken as directed. We know of no reliable research that says otherwise. If over-the-counter supplements were dangerous, bodies would be strewn all over the playing fields of America; soccer moms would be sobbing behind the wheels of their SUVs after another fatal match; and body bags adorned with the Nike swoosh would be piling up in locker rooms everywhere. But they're not. Remember, this is a $4 billion dollar-a-year industry. That's a lot of doses without the carnage that would surely result if these substances were as toxic as "Killer Gods" alleges. Read the preceding two sentences again and absorb the logic.

The "evidence" presented by Solotaroff consists only of hearsay and anecdotal hype, most of which we've debunked in an earlier FLEX article ("Ephedrine Under Attack," December 2001). There are the infamous "adverse event reactions" on ephedrine tabulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which have been discredited by the General Accounting Office, the congressional investigative arm. Solotaroff also trots out the tragic fatalities that rocked organized football last year, the most famous being Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings. These terrible events, however, were subsequently blamed on causes other than sports supplements, or else involved a preexisting heart condition as the dominant factor.

FLEX regularly cautions teenagers to avoid taking ephedrine and prohormones, and we will continue to do so. The fact that some teenagers defy these guidelines hardly justifies Solotaroff's sneering, sweeping condemnation of an entire industry. If we thought sports supplements were dangerous, we wouldn't promote them to adults, much less teens.

The real teenage health crisis can be seen in the startling rate of childhood obesity, cataloged with alarming frequency by nutritionists and discussed in such excellent books as Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. In light of this disturbing trend, Height training and the dietary discipline bodybuilding inspires should be encouraged rather than demonized.

What's even more dangerous to the health of teenagers, however, can be observed in the very same issue of Rolling Stone. It's found in the cigarette advertisement that dominates the back cover and the full-page hard liquor ad that's featured on the page immediately preceding "Killer Bods." I would expect the usually fastidious Rolling Stone editors to be more sensitive to the hypocrisy of criticizing supplement manufacturers for marketing their products to young people engaged in the pursuit of self-improvement, while allowing their advertisers to market cigarettes and whiskey to the very same demographic.

IT'S BEEN A VERY GOOD SMEAR

Bodybuilding, supplements and steroids are esoteric subjects to many in mainstream media. Even the finest editor, and there are many good ones at Rolling Stone, wouldn't have the background to adequately weigh the testimony from a self-proclaimed expert on bodybuilding who seems to have the necessary credentials. This appears to have been the case with "Killer Gods."

In brief notes about the author on page 13 of the same issue, Solotaroff admits to having used steroids in the past, and he insists that he still goes to the gym five days a week. He says he no longer uses illegal substances, but blames his past steroid use for persistent physical maladies that afflict him to this day.