Chad has had a target on his back since the first night of JoJo’s season of The Bachelorette. He’s buff, he’s handsome, JoJo likes him, and he has an attitude that is turning everyone in the Bachelorette mansion against him. Suffice it to say that the other guys have had enough of Chad’s Bachelorette putdowns. To get back at him, Evan told some thinly veiled jokes about a man who takes steroids and ruins his, well, manhood. Chad wasn’t pleased (it was obvious who Evan was talking about), and the other guys in the house found it to be hilarious. But, why is Evan from The Bachelorette taking shots at an issue like this? Accusing Chad of using steroids is not a laughing matter. On the show, Chad did not directly respond to Evan's insinuations about steroids, but he did appear to be incredibly offended by the implication that he may allegedly use steroids. Bustle reached out to Chad for comment on the allegations, but has not yet received a response.
Evan’s steroid story seemed to stem from Chad frequently working out in The Bachelorette mansion. Not that there’s much else to do in the Bachelorette mansion (Sean Lowe revealed in his tell-all book that phones and books and magazines are confiscated), so all Chad and Daniel seem to do is work out together. Chad measures out all of his food to the calorie, and he’s constantly snacking (much, I’m sure, to the chagrin of both the producers and craft services). Dude ate a sweet potato like an apple the other day. Anyway, this focus on fitness makes it easy to poke fun at Chad, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's OK. Steroid use is nothing to joke about.
According to the Mayo Clinic, sometimes athletes take a form of steroids known as anabolic steroids to increase their “muscle mass and strength.” I assume these are the kind of "‘roids" that Evan was talking about. The Mayo Clinic says that these drugs are attractive to some athletes because they “may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the muscle damage that occurs during the session. This enables athletes to work out harder and more frequently without overtraining.” Basically, you can work out hard and not feel sore the next day, letting you work out and get swoll more.
But, these drugs aren’t without serious consequences. As reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, research has shown that “men in their late 20s and early 30s who abuse steroids are dying from serious heart disease.” The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that anabolic steroids can cause breast development and shrinking of the testicles in men, as well as the stunting of bone growth, heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, internal bleeding from ruptured cysts, and infections like hepatitis from the use of non-sterile needles for injections.
Anabolic steroids are just like any other drug — the National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that users can indeed get addicted. Because addiction is a disease that is notoriously hard to beat and treat, Evan shouldn't have used The Bachelorette as a platform to poke fun at it. To insinuate that Chad is an addict is both below the show and in poor taste. Evan's "jokes" were not funny, and not OK. And, hopefully JoJo sends him home soon for his poor behavior.
Images: Rick Rowell/ABC
