Peter Suderman writes at Reason:

After all these years of media scare stories trying to terrify readers with worries about how kids are too sedentary and don’t eat well, I suppose it’s comforting to find a scare story about how teen boys are obsessed gym rats who consume lots of protein and very little fat. The New York Times delivers the goods:

Take David Abusheikh. At age 15, he started lifting weights for two hours a day, six days a week. Now that he is a senior at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, he has been adding protein bars and shakes to his diet to put on muscle without gaining fat.

“I didn’t used to be into supplements,” said Mr. Abusheikh, 18, who plans on a career in engineering, “but I wanted something that would help me get bigger a little faster.”

Pediatricians are starting to sound alarm bells about boys who take unhealthy measures to try to achieve Charles Atlas bodies that only genetics can truly confer. Whether it is long hours in the gym, allowances blown on expensive supplements or even risky experiments with illegal steroids, the price American boys are willing to pay for the perfect body appears to be on the rise.

Peter adds:

Yes, the same paper that recently warned that overweight teens who don’t exercise were at increased risk of diabetes and likened teen obesity to smoking, and which in 2009 published a lengthy piece on how teen obesity led to early death (sample expert quote: “We know that health behaviors are established early on in life.”) is now concerned that large numbers of teenage boys are exercising, and experimenting with diets that will help them build muscle.

The whole post here. Do read the part where the Times blames Paul Ryan for all of it.

Public health menace?