The media loves shocking and sensational stories. They make their money based upon the number of viewers or readers who buy or watch their offering each day. The more viewers tune in to their show (and stay tuned in), the more money they earn in advertising revenue for commercial airtime. The more copies they sell of the newspaper, the more they can charge advertisers for print space. It's all about money, and featuring stories that are interesting, controversial, or exciting does lead to more money. Eliciting an emotional response from readers is the main goal of media editors. If they can get their readers to be happy, sad, angry, or scared (and many parents are scared of their kids using steroids), they have done their job for marketing purposes, not journalistic purposes.

Polls are frequently conducted among high school students to see just how many of them are using steroids. One problem with this is that many students are ignorant of what anabolic steroids actually are. Many people erroneously believe that creatine is a steroid. They believe that BCAAs are steroids. They believe that ephedrine is a steroid. They will mix up things found on the vitamin aisle with steroids. They will admit to pollsters that they have dabbled with steroids, when it reality all they did was try creatine twice with a friend before football practice.

The media will use these polls to create outrageous claims, such as "6 in 10 high school students are on steroids!" What this really means, is merely 6 out of 10 students told researchers they think they've used steroids. Do kids lie? Of course they do. Some might think it's funny to skew the results. Some might enjoy the attention. Some might just enjoy the perception that they're "bad", or doing something taboo. For whatever reason, if you were to conduct blood panels on these same high school students, you can rest assured that a number far lower than 60% would test positive for steroids.

Steroids are a problem in many areas of youth, particularly high-level sports. But when your local news runs a story that shows 60% of more of local kids are juicing, take it with a grain of salt. Check out their research methods. Find out what questions they asked. Often you'll find the questions led to the answers they sere seeking all along, those which lead to the most sensational stories, and therefore the most profitable stories.