Steroids are the subject of discussion among Salt Lake teenagers with the arrival of a new student-to-student program in the city's three largest high schools.
ATLAS — Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids — is the drug-prevention curriculum advocated by Mayor Rocky Anderson and introduced at Highland, West and East high schools last week. Some 1,500 boys who play on sports teams will take part.
"Student athletes see the Olympics, and they want to get to that level. They see steroids as a quick and easy way to get there," said Jason Olsen, Salt Lake City School District spokesman. "Jumping off a cliff is the quickest way to get down to the bottom, too. . . . The ATLAS program teaches safer ways and habits that can help athletes reach that high level without drugs."
ATLAS' developer, Dr. Linn Goldberg of Oregon Health Sciences University, met coaches and athletes at West High this week.
"The kids have a lot of fun with this," Goldberg said. "And the program has proved consistent in reducing steroid and alcohol use" among 31 high schools that studied ATLAS' effects. "The kids also improved their nutrition and had less body fat and more muscle mass."
The program, Goldberg said, shows teens how to reap the benefits of healthy living. It almost sounds too good to be true — but Olsen said it works due to a kind of positive peer pressure.
"Each coach designates a squad leader — a student. Then it's a student teaching students," he said, "and they're more apt to listen to their fellow classmates than to a talking-head adult."
The 10-year-old ATLAS program has the mayor's support in large part due to published reports of its success. For months, Anderson has been striving to persuade the district to adopt new drug-prevention programs to supplant DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). He canceled funding for DARE in Salt Lake schools last summer, calling it a waste of time and money.
"I've disagreed with the reliance on programs like DARE that have been demonstrated to be completely ineffective," Anderson said in a December interview. "There are good, research-based programs that apparently don't have the lobbying efforts behind them that DARE does."
The ATLAS program has been praised by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and is a model curriculum chosen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But its focus is limited to teen boys — so district officials emphasize that it doesn't take the place of DARE, which targeted fifth-grade boys and girls.
"ATLAS is just a supplement" to drug-prevention units taught in all grades, said Shannon Andersen, the Salt Lake Safe and Drug-free Schools coordinator. "We have a K-12 curriculum that is statewide, Prevention Dimensions. It addresses not only drugs and alcohol but also violence prevention and other at-risk behaviors" such as early sexual activity, she said. "When DARE was pulled, we put in a special 15-unit program called 'The Truth about Tobacco,' so our fifth-grade kids are getting 15 hours of specifically tobacco-oriented" classes.
"I agree that there should be programs starting in fourth or fifth grade on up through high school," said the mayor. But "there has been no scientific evaluation of Prevention Dimension's effectiveness." In his State of the City address this week, Anderson touted ATLAS as a drug-prevention program that is proven to work and called for the adoption of other tested curricula, including the Life Skills Training and STAR programs.
"We anticipate having a drug-prevention component in our after-school programs," Anderson said earlier in an interview. "I'm absolutely committed to it being a research-based, proven, effective program rather than a feel-good, 'just say no' program like DARE." The mayor's Youth City afternoon activities start this month at the Central City Community Center.
Meanwhile, the coaches at Highland, East and West high schools will integrate ATLAS materials during team practice. "We're very excited about adding this," said Olsen. "And since we were able to get federal grants for it, it won't cost the district anything." Those grants will also fund a study of ATLAS' results among Salt Lake teens.
The school district may also consider a trial of ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives), a newer program Goldberg designed for teen girls.
Information about both ATLAS and ATHENA is accessible on the Web at www.atlasprogram.com.
E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com