Whaddaya mean, A-Rod’s on the juice?!? Sure, baseball’s quarter billion dollar, Madonna-loving power hitter, the supposed greatest player to ever play the game, is now coming forward with his little mea culpa that, sure, once upon a time, he used steroids, but he is honestly sorry about the whole dang thing. Boy, that makes me feel a lot better. One friend of mine suggested that the situation isn’t such a problem because baseball has been steeped in a fine tradition of cheating for decades: players have always sought the unfair advantage and this is one opportunity for them to do it again. Why does that logic make me feel even slimier?

A-Roid Rage

A-Roid Rage

Here we are in an age when cutting corners and trying to unfairly scamper to the high ground have gotten us all, the world community, in a peck of trouble. Look at all the financial scandals, from the Madoffs to the sub-prime mortgage fiascos—in the end, its all steroids that people were taking in order to achieve their own short term goals. A-Rod, like Barry Bonds, probably would have made the Hall of Fame on the talents that the good Lord gave him. But he had to go and stick himself with a needle to bump that batting average just so, and with that bump, came a paycheck that is mind-boggling. Without the juice, he may have made only eight figures over the span of his career, but with the juice, HA HA, nine figures are his. Would it be right to say that he should be left with eight figures and no chemical advantage over the other players?

And I don’t even care about A-Rod. He is a fascinating case study but if he were relegated to the back page of the Post for the rest of eternity, I wouldn’t blink. My problem is the message: if you take the juice, you can excel and have fame and fortune in professional sports. And so thousands of kids—KIDS—kick back and figure “hey, if A-Rod can do it, I can do it too.” And they start taking steroids because they believe that its ok and that it is actually part of the game. And that is a huge problem.

The steroids become part of the belief that there is a short cut to success. Happiness is in a bottle. Can’t run fast enough. Try this bottle. Can’t lose the weight? Try this bottle. And in an already physically unhealthy society where two out of every three adults are overweight or obese, we are turning to bottles to make us even unhealthier because they promise quick results.

I woke up this morning to the news release that powerful diuretics were found in over the counter “natural” weight loss supplements. These are very potent drugs and they were added to “nutritional supplements” that you can by at any local vitamin store. The diuretics help you lose weight, sure, but the consequences can be very serious. And across the Atlantic, British researchers announced that seven minutes of exercise are the bare minimum needed per week to stay healthy (so long as those seven minutes are strenuous.)

Come on!! Shoot me now!! Do we really need that?

The researchers would probably say, “We are trying to impress on people that would ordinarily not exercise that the minimum of effort necessary is quite simple to accomplish. Therefore, we are helping the population to become healthier.”

I say there are too many people who believe that there is quick way out, a fast, painless answer akin to A-Rod taking a syringe in the butt on his way to a $250MM contract, and research like this will keep these people from going out and discovering a healthier lifestyle.

It’s moronic and frustrating.