Athletes Drink Alcohol example essay topic

528 words
Alcohol and athletes don't mix just like alcohol and driving doesn't mix. Alcohol is a very poisonous liquid that contains many organic chemicals. Some of these lethal chemicals that people drink include ethanol, methanol, isopropanol, and others. Alcohol is a clear, explosive liquid that burns easily just like the many kitchen cleaners we have in our cupboards. Alcohol is a very bad liquid to drink especially when you play sport. It effects many parts of your body and has a huge amount of side effects that effect you as an individual and as a sports person.

When the person drinks alcohol its passed from the stomach into the small intestine, where it is rapidly absorbed into the blood. Then the heart pumps the blood and distributes it throughout the body. Because it is scattered so quickly and thoroughly the alcohol can affect the central nervous system causing the person to become less stable and very drowsy. Athletes these days say alcohol consumption before a race can calm the nerves making them feel less worried and fearless. The other reasons why athletes drink alcohol is to reduce inhibitions, increase mental alertness, reduce pain if any before race and reduce muscle tremor. Even though athletes can find some positives with alcohol there also is negatives.

Alcohol has been proven that it can decrease accuracy, balance, and reaction time, slow visual tracking and information processing, decrease strength, power and muscle endurance and also dehydrate the body. These side effects wouldn't help an athlete at all and it would in fact slow the athlete down especially if playing a game sport such as football. The positives of alcohol aren't really that positive if you think about it. Even though alcohol does dull the sensation of pain that isn't a good thing. If the person cant feel the pain then they wouldn't even know its there, in this case the pain will grow worse because you wouldn't rest it or care for it.

Alcohol also contains many calories per drink, these calories very quickly add up causing the consumer to become very overweight. This will slow down the person in sporting performances and can cause he or she to become very unfit. In addition to this alcohol interferes with the absorption of many vitamins and minerals, this can slow down the processing of carbohydrates and proteins that are needed in an everyday diet of an athlete. BUT with everything there are some positives in alcohol, drinking one bottle a day (no more) can increase the level of high-density lipoproteins or HDL's in the blood. HDL's are known as the "good cholesterol" and are good for keeping our arteries clear and can reduce the risk of heart disease. Even though this is a good thing I don't suggest drinking a bottle a day just for the fact of lower risk of heart disease because remember there are much more negatives than positives to drinking a bottle of alcohol.

So far, this is the only real positive of alcohol to your health.