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In previous years, looks-conscious teens might have splurged on glamour shots at the mall, or fine-tuned their selfies with digital filters. In today’s hyper-competitive landscape of bodily optimization known as “looksmaxing,” some young men are going straight for the hard stuff. One particularly alarming intervention: trenbolone, or “tren,” a veterinary-grade anabolic steroid used to fatten up cows destined for the slaughterhouse.
One of those teens is Zaid Laila, a 16-year-old whose tren habit resulted in massive gains in muscle mass and fat loss, CBS reported. In an interview over his use of steroids, the Dallas teen characterized the drug as a shortcut to get the kind of chiseled physique that plays well on social media.
“Why wait 10 years,” he asked CBS, “when I could do it in less than a year.”
Sure enough, Laila’s look has dramatically transformed over just 10 months of tren use, which the teen documented extensively on his Instagram page, CBS footage shows. Unlike steroid abusers of a previous generation, Laila isn’t shy about how he got his dream body, fanning out syringes of cow drugs like dollar bills for his Insta reels.
It took a “lot of steroids and a lot of working out,” he told the outlet.
Of course, the risks of abusing anabolic steroids are immense, and teens like Laila — who are likely experiencing the kind of extreme body dysmorphia fueled by the rise of the looksmaxxing subculture — know it, they just don’t care.
For example, tren puts tremendous strain on the heart, raising the likelihood of heart attacks, blood clots, strokes, and arterial damage. That’s not stopping Laila, though.
“If I have a heart attack at 30, I have a heart attack,” he told CBS. “I’m still going to do [steroids]. I know what can come with it.”
More on drugs: Scientists Just Found Something Rather Grim That Happens When You Stop Taking GLP-1s