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Could teenage bodybuilders be harming their young bodies?

Tribune file photo by FRED BELLET

Danielle Reardon and Aaron Duncan were named Mr. and Miss Wesley Chapel High School in 2008. “I really didn't care what I did to my body," Reardon says. "I just wanted to win.”

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By MARY SHEDDEN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 4, 2009

In high school, Dani Reardon loved being the buffest girl around.

Better yet, she wanted everyone to see it.

Every spring for four years, Reardon dieted, hit the gym and practiced a routine worthy of impressing the judges at the annual Mr. and Miss Wesley Chapel bodybuilding contest.

Four times, she took home trophies for poses she struck before a screaming, photo-snapping crowd.

"It was totally energizing," said Reardon, a two-time winner of the top honor, Miss Wesley Chapel. "I loved the spotlight."

But that level of fitness came at a price. Her junior- and senior-year training regimen reflected practices common in professional bodybuilding: taking legal, but unregulated, nutritional supplements and going for days without water to strip her body of excess fluids.

"I really didn't care what I did to my body," said Reardon, 18. "I just wanted to win."

Reardon's success reflects the fine line walked by students in at least eight Hillsborough and Pasco County public schools that hold annual novice bodybuilding contests. Though intended to combat obesity and encourage fitness, even those supportive of these popular — and increasingly competitive — contests acknowledge they also could instigate poor nutritional choices and inappropriate behavior by teens emulating a sport rampant with doping scandals.

These annual fundraisers for school weight rooms or football programs are the culmination of teens spending months in the gym, cutting weight and sculpting muscles. They attract dozens of competitors at each campus, and hundreds of students, parents and friends pack auditoriums and gyms for the shows.

"It's more of a fitness show than bodybuilding," said Bob Ennis, a Leto High physical education teacher, coach and organizer of the Mr. and Miss Falcon contest since 1985. "It's about kids looking good at their age."

But Fabio Comana, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, calls the situation a potential "recipe for disaster," an opportunity for students to experiment on their own with unregulated nutritional supplements, crash dieting or extreme dehydration.

"Emotionally, psychologically, physiologically, their bodies are not ready for it," Comana said.

Good and bad

The intensity of competition varies at every high school and with every teen. To some, it's a tradition no more outrageous than an annual Sadie Hawkins dance.

Though the bodybuilding contests often are named after the school or its mascot, this is not an organized sport. And unlike wrestling and weight lifting, it is not sanctioned by the Florida High School Athletic Association. The final say as to whether and how a contest operates is up to the principals, Pasco and Hillsborough public school policies state.

At most schools, students sign up several months in advance and volunteer organizers lay down ground rules, such as participation in a weight-lifting class or involvement in a school sport.

After-school nutrition sessions are required at Plant City's Durant High, where they provide students a detailed high-protein, carbohydrate-reducing diet. Leto, in Tampa, and Wesley Chapel provide general information and talks about the dangers of supplements. Several contests team up with gyms to provide access to weight training.

Several past winners of school bodybuilding contests said they dieted "down" like professional bodybuilders to highlight muscles. The diet — common among many athletes trying to build lean muscle mass — focuses on eating a lot of protein, and a steady reduction in carbohydrates and liquids.

Reardon, who also was an all-county weight lifter, said she dieted seriously her last two years and took an over-the-counter nitric oxide supplement to increase muscle. She reduced her body fat several percentage points and gained several pounds of muscle preparing for the contest her senior year.

Wesley Chapel physical education teacher John Castelamare said because many participants are athletes, they understand how to train and care for their bodies. Like other school organizers, he does not encourage the use of supplements other than protein powder.

"I've never had a problem," said Castelamare, the longtime organizer of contests at Wesley Chapel and Ridgewood High. "I've never seen a kid where he gets to a point that he gets sick or something."

Regardless, the nutrition and weight training associated with bodybuilding can hurt an adolescent body if it isn't monitored, said Barbara Morris, assistant program director of the Sports Medicine and Athletic Related Trauma Institute at the University of South Florida.

Immature growth plates and heat regulatory systems are of particular concern. Girls who don't take in enough calories for their level of exercise also run the risk of altering their menstrual cycles. Secondary amenorrhea can affect bone health and lead to osteoporosis.

"From a physiological standpoint, these individuals aren't young adults," said Morris, a former bodybuilder and American Gladiators competitor in the early 1990s. "Their bodies aren't mature yet."

Joclyn Emerson, the 2006 winner of Durant's contest, said she followed a diet that included drinking up to two protein powder shakes a day, but not all students were intense about losing or gaining weight.

"I don't think [organizers] had us on a strict diet like professional bodybuilders. … I was still having pancakes," said Emerson, now 20, and the daughter of a Tribune copy editor. "I think it's a good motivator to eat nutritiously."

Dehydration risk

Morris said she is most concerned about dehydration.

"Everything else we do in athletics, we preach hydration, hydration, hydration," she said. "So that concerns me, especially within the last few days of the competition."

In 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics addressed concerns about young athletes and dehydration. "Fluid restriction, spitting, the use of laxatives and diuretics, rubber suits, steam baths and saunas" can impair performance and increase the risk of injury, the group said.

That behavior also increases the chance that the teens will suffer from eating disorders, said Kevin Thompson, a USF clinical psychology professor.

Grant Sizemore, winner of the 2008 Mr. Cougar contest and a pre-med student at USF, dropped 40 pounds in the three months before the Durant competition. He said though he now questions avoiding liquids for two days before the 2008 contest, he focuses on a diet similar to what he learned through bodybuilding: high in protein and free of soda and fast food.

"It's definitely not the healthiest thing I've done, not drinking water for two days," he said. "But now, I'm much healthier."

Reardon, who plans to enter her first outside bodybuilding competition this fall, agreed that cutting back on water was risky. "It was horrible. But I love that lifestyle," she said.

Ennis said concerns about extreme dieting are why he no longer provides Leto students with an eating plan. "We've been guilty in the past of being too serious," he said.

Leto parent Kevin Whitley said he would never allow son Killian to participate in bodybuilding if dehydration was encouraged. A retired jockey, Whitley saw peers pass out trying to cut weight before a horse race. Some of them now live with serious ailments or have died as a result of the damage.

That's not the future he wants for his son.

"When you're a growing kid, you're gaining weight, not losing," Whitley said.

Quick fix

Ken Baker was 13 when he saved enough to buy his first weights. At 16, he started going to the gym with his dad. Now 33, the personal trainer and competitive bodybuilder encourages teens to explore the sport only if they can work with people who know how to safely add muscle and weight to their still-growing frames.

That's especially true when it comes to using over-the-counter nutritional supplements, said Baker, a trainer at Tampa's Body Tech. Individual ingredients undergo safety reviews by the Food and Drug Administration, but products that contain a blend are not tested. That's not clear when looking at advertisements saturating the Internet and bodybuilding magazines.

"They want a quick fix because they're teenagers. They see it in a magazine. They want it tomorrow," he said.

In general, bodybuilders 16 and younger should stick to protein powders and multivitamins, Baker said. Older teens may be physically mature enough to explore supplements that increase blood flow, such as creatine and nitric oxide, he said. But anything pushing up a teen's hormonal levels should be avoided.

Sizemore, a former Durant lineman and class valedictorian, said he knew of several Mr. Cougar competitors in 2008 who took over-the-counter fat burners.

Durant Principal Pam Bowden and organizer Dan Turpin did not return calls for this story. Turpin, a Durant history teacher, told the Tribune in April that efforts were made to focus students on proper nutrition and training.

Longtime coaches, including Ennis and Castelamare, disdain supplements such as creatine, but acknowledge curious teens will seek them out. Ennis recently found creatine in the school's weight room, which is used only by athletes and students enrolled in the weight-lifting class.

Camona, of the American Council of Exercise, said supplements don't have a lasting effect, so competitors looking for an edge could turn to banned performance enhancers such as steroids.

In some bodybuilding circles, steroids are the ultimate answer. In May, a national professional bodybuilding competition in Belgium was abruptly canceled when every contestant withdrew to avoid dealing with the arrival of random drug testers. Two weeks ago, Polk County sheriff's investigators seized an enormous steroid stash. Among the items confiscated: amateur bodybuilding trophies won by husband-and-wife defendants.

Baker said it's much more likely to hear talk about steroids in bodybuilding than other high school sports. "Bodybuilding is that, probably, times 10," he said.

That doesn't surprise Ennis, who said he considered shutting down the Mr. and Miss Falcon event at Leto in the mid-1990s because he suspected students were using steroids. Instead, he said, he redirected the bodybuilding contest and made it less competitive.

It's about looks

Entering a high school bodybuilding contest is no easy decision. Female students have to be willing to go onstage in no more than a bikini or sports bra and micro shorts; boys wear compression shorts or less. They perform a routine in front of their peers, flexing all the major muscles, from abs to the gluteus maximus.

Samantha Hensley, Durant's Miss Cougar 2008, thought she had the nerve even though she weighed just more than 100 pounds. She loved working out before the competition and seeing her muscles develop.

But when Hensley hit the stage, some in the audience booed. Text messages and jeers from other students after the win were ruthless, as were the comments she discovered on Facebook, where someone posted an unflattering picture from the event and called her anorexic.

"I don't know if it was worth it. It's so hard when everyone's so mean," said Hensley, now a student at Florida Southern College. She attended this year's competition, and was disappointed to again hear boos targeting some contestants.

No matter the sponsors' healthful intentions, the high school bodybuilding contests "amp up" the pressure for teens to focus on body image, said USF's Professor Thompson.

"You can pitch this as fitness, but what they are being judged on is not their heart rate. It's about how they look," said Thompson, co-editor of "The Muscular Ideal" (American Psychological Association, 2007).

Attending a high school bodybuilding contest is a lot like a Jonas Brothers concert: nonstop female screams sometimes drown out the hip-hop and dance music. Nearly all poses elicit cheers, but none as raucous as the rear double bicep — where contestants turn their backside to the crowd.

Participants know they're being checked out, said contestant Jazz Ayuso, a 19-year-old Leto cheerleader. "Most girls want to go to see the guys' bodies," she said.

It's obvious some are nervous about how they look. At Leto, more-muscular boys and girls at the May contest pumped up and oiled up before heading onstage. Less-developed students removed their shirts only when told to. Ennis said he knows some students — particularly larger boys — are self-conscious about not having six-pack abs.

There's also the sexual aspect of posing in revealing outfits. At Durant, male bodybuilding contestants wear skimpy trunks, but Sizemore said he didn't feel uncomfortable posing or performing a routine.

"By that time, I had lost 40 pounds; I looked great," he said.

Lewis Brinson, Hillsborough County assistant superintendent for administration, said swimsuits are appropriate attire.

"You can't go in your overalls and talk about your body," he said. "But you also can't expose too much."

At Leto, several parents said they helped select their teen's outfit for competition. Kelvin Dick, whose daughter Tiffany is one of the county's top softball players, said they struck a balance.

"She's worked very hard. She's played four sports. She's been lifting weights. It's her senior year," he said of his daughter, who placed third in her division.

Still, the apparel, or lack of it, is why some Leto teachers avoid the annual competition, said Sarah Dickerson, a senior contestant.

"Teachers feel awkward coming because they feel it's inappropriate," said Dickerson, 18.

Some schools, such as Wesley Chapel and Durant, require contestants to perform routines to popular music. Hensley said some outfits and routines at Durant's contest crossed the line, and she thinks schools should pre-approve what students wear and perform to avoid "vulgar thrusting."

Wesley Chapel Principal Andy Frelick said Castelamare's contest keeps it clean by clearing outfits and moves ahead of time. The coach, the father of two daughters, said he aims for a family-friendly experience.

"More families come to this, it's not just the kids," he said. "Grandpa comes. They want to see their granddaughter up on stage."

Reporter Mary Shedden can be reached at (813) 259-7365.

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