Doping and the perfect body expert: social and cultural indicators of performance-enhancing drug use in Danish gyms

Abstract

Most doping studies focus on the incidence of performance-enhancing drugs and devote little attention to the training sphere or the social factors involved in this process. In this study, Danish doping data from different social arenas of sport and physical exercise (7,039 respondents) form the basis for analyses of the relative importance of social indicators. More respondents from gyms admitted to having experimented with legal as well as banned performance-enhancing substances than did respondents among elite athletes, and the relative importance of education is only indicated among gym users with experience of anabolic-androgenic steroids compared to respondents within the sphere of competitive sport. These results are discussed in the light of findings from qualitative studies of the doping phenomenon. Two patterns of doping practices are discernible in the analysis: whereas aesthetic modification appears to be a primary goal behind certain training regimes and the potential use of pharmaceutical substances in gym and fitness culture, the desire to improve physical capacity appears to underlie the training regimes as well as the use of certain pharmaceutical substances in competitive sports. It is argued that the notion of the perfect body expert is useful in developing a theoretical understanding of the role of drug use within physical training spheres while conceiving different patterns of doping practices.

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by The Ministry of Culture Committee on Sports Research, Denmark. Many thanks to Lars Benjaminsen, researcher, PhD, The Danish National Centre for Social Research, for providing the statistical analyses.

Notes

¹ Houlihan, Dying to Win; Waddington, Sport, Health and Drugs.

² Dubin, Commision of Inquiry; Berendonk, Doping-Dokumente.

³ Klein, Little Big Men; Blouin and Goldield, ‘Body Image’; Monaghan, Bodybuilding; Striegel et al. , ‘Anabolic Ergogenic Substance Users’; Perry et al. , ‘Anabolic Steroid Use’; Nilsson et al. , ‘Attitudes and Behaviours’; Parkinson and Evans, ‘Anabolic Androgenic Steroids’; Wanjek et al. , ‘Doping, Drugs and Drug Abuse’; Pedersen and Benjaminsen, ‘Er dopingerfaringer forbeholdt lavtuddannede’.

⁴ See also Mazanov, ‘Developing an Agenda’.

⁵ E.g. Alaranta et al. , ‘Self-reported Attitudes’; Peretti-Watel et al. , ‘Attitudes Toward Doping’; Striegel, Vollkommer and Dickhuth, ‘Combating Drug Use’; McCardle, ‘Elite Athletes’ Perceptions'; Anshel, ‘A Survey’.

⁶ Wacquant, ‘The Prizefighter's Three Bodies’; Pedersen, Wichstrøm and Blekesaune, ‘Violent Behaviors’; Monaghan, ‘Hormonal Bodies’; Steensland et al. , ‘Amphetamine-induced Aggression’.

⁷ The Body Image Study ; Klein, Little Big Men; Helling, Steroider och starka män; Barland, Gymmet; Monaghan, Bodybuilding, Drugs and Risk; Pedersen, ‘Kropslige perfektioneringseksperter’.

⁸ Backhouse et al. , Attitudes, Behaviours.

⁹ E.g. Wanjek et al., ‘Doping, Drugs’.

¹⁰ Doping i Danmark .

¹¹ Bergsgard and Tangen, Idrettsmiljo og dopingbruk.

¹² Korkia and Stimson, ‘Indications of Prevalence’.

¹³ Doping i Danmark.

¹⁴ Anti Doping Danmark , ‘Annual Report’.

¹⁵ Mottram (ed.), Drugs in Sport; Waddington, Sport, Health and Drugs; Houlihan, Dying to Win.

¹⁶ Pedersen and Benjaminsen, ‘Er dopingerfaringer forbeholdt lavtuddannede’.

¹⁷ Benjaminsen and Pedersen, Doping og anvendelse af andre præstationsfremmende midler, 28.

¹⁸ The Body Image Study; Klein, Little Big Men; Helling, Steroider och starka män; Barland, Gymmet; Monaghan, Bodybuilding, Drugs and Risk; Pedersen, ‘Doping as a Culture-Constitutive Process’.

¹⁹ Translated into English from Pedersen, ‘Kropslige perfektioneringseksperter’, 70.

²⁰ Bordo, ‘Anorexia Nervosa’; Blouien and Goldield, ‘Body Image’; Schwerin and Corcoran, ‘Beliefs about Steroids’; Brumberg, Fasting Girls.

²¹ Pope, Katz and Hudson, ‘Anorexia Nervosa’; Kanayama et al. , ‘Body Image’.

²² Helling, Steroider och starka män.

²³ Foucault, The History of Sexuality.

²⁴ Klein, Little Big Men; Helling, Steroider och starka män; Barland, Gymmet; Monaghan, Bodybuilding.

²⁵ Bourdieu, Distinction.

²⁶ See also Pedersen and Benjaminsen, ‘Er dopingerfaringer forbeholdt lavtuddannede’.

²⁷ For example, Helling, Steroider och starka män; and Monaghan, Bodybuilding.

²⁸ Zola, ‘Medicine’; Illich, Medical Nemesis; Conrad, ‘Medicalization’; Lupton, Medicine as Culture; Williams and Calnan, ‘The “Limits” of Medicalization; Rose, The Politics of Life.

²⁹ See, for example, Waddington, Sport, Health and Drugs, 87ff; Donati et al. , La valutazione nell'avviamento allo sport; Berendonk, Doping-Dokumente; Issajenko, O'Malley and O'Reilly, Running Risks; Dubin, Commision of Inquiry.

³⁰ Bloor et al. , ‘The Body’, 41; Monaghan, Bodybuilding.

³¹ Keld and Hahn, ‘Abuse of Anabolic Androgenic Steroids’, 32.

³² See Monaghan, Bodybuilding.

³³ Schjerling, ‘The Basics of Gene Doping’; Andersen, Schjerling and Saltin, ‘Muscle, Genes’.