AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
APPROACHES AND RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH AND HEALTHY LIFESTYLE OF UNIVERSITY
FEMALE STUDENTS
a
MARIÁN MERICA,
ᵇRÓBERT OSAĎAN,
c
LILLA
KOREŇOVÁ, ͩJÁN GUNČAGA
Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Education,
Račianska 59, 813 34 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
email:
a
merica@fedu.uniba.sk,
ᵇosadan@fedu.uniba.sk
ͨkorenova@fedu.uniba.sk, ͩguncaga@fedu.uniba.sk
Abstract: In their contribution, the authors describe the issue of health and healthy
lifestyle of university female students of the Faculty of Education of Comenius
University in Bratislava, who study in the study program - pre-school and elementary
pedagogy. The aim of the article is to describe and interpret, according the
questionnaire consisting of 29 questions, the answers of 101 female students of
bachelor's and master's study concerning their attitudes towards health and realization
of healthy lifestyle as part of their overall mental hygiene. Based on the questionnaire
evaluation by the percentage-frequency analysis and the results obtained from testing
the 10 hypotheses using the Chi-squared test, we can conclude that our college
students in their value perception tend to have a positive relationship to health and try
to respect the basic attributes of a healthy lifestyle. Most of the students are aware of
their reserves in this area and therefore they want to improve their eating habits,
drinking regime, using their free time and they want to be more active in the means of
regeneration and relaxation from fatigue and stress, by increasing the number of hours
in several of their leisure activities.
Keywords: health, healthy lifestyle, university female students, rational nutrition,
relaxation, physical activity.
1 Introduction
Part of a healthy lifestyle of every individual is, in addition to
appropriate exercise, also healthy rational nutrition with plenty
of drinking regime and proper mental hygiene. Eating habits is
undoubtedly a habit that most affects people's health. The habit
of eating is constantly repeated throughout a person's life.
According to some authors, up to 90% of all diseases, when not
considering infectious diseases and injuries, are related to diet.
On the contrary, according to Pamplon-Roger (1996),
nourishment does not depend on the voluntary nature of the
individual, and it is completely involuntary. It includes all the
processes and transformations by which food in the organism
passes through to its complete transformation. Under normal
conditions, if there is no pathological process in the body, good
nutrition is reflected in good nutritional status.
The issue of rational nutrition, adherence to the drinking regime
and mental hygiene has been given great attention in recent
years, also because of that many diseases nowadays arise as a
result of unnatural and unsuitable food, non-compliance with the
drinking regime and also failure to comply with the basic rules
of mental hygiene. We meet with this in the works of many
authors for example Carper (1998), Sullivan (2002), Horáková
(2009), (Piťha-Poledne (2009), Grotto (2009) and others.
According to Gregor (2007) we still meet lots of people who do
not want to admit that these health problems may also be related
to the non-compliance with these basic rules of a healthy
lifestyle.
Many peole often do not have time to eat, and when they find it,
they usually eat fast food and they do not realize what negative
consequences this diet can have on the body, which is mostly
rich in fat and cholesterol. If we realize that many children and
students have also this eating habits, this issue is still current.
Sports nutrition was mainly addressed by authors: Clarková
(2000), Kalečík (2000), Konopka (2004), Fořt (2005), Žák
(2005) and others. In the application of rational nutrition, the
knowledge of Clark (2000) is very important, with emphasis on
natural nutrition, where fruits and vegetables contain 70-85% of
water and should be the major, ideal food.
And we must not forget that for every individual, in addition to
rational nutrition, it is extremely important to maintain adequate
physical activity. With the exercises as part of a healthy lifestyle,
we meet in the work of several authors, for example Kalečík
(2000), Škovierová (2000), Murgová (2001), Novotná-Merica
(2007)
, Dahlke (2008), Hrčka et al (2011), Merica (2012), and
others. In particular, these authors emphasize the need for
recreational, but regular exercise, as the inevitable need of each
individual.
2 Methodology
The aim of this work was to find out attitudes and relationship to
health and healthy lifestyle of university female students of
bachelor and master studies at the Faculty of Education of
Comenius University in Bratislava, who study in the study
program - pre-school and elementary education.
Tasks. Based on our goal, we set out the following tasks: choose
university in Bratislava for solving our issue, compile a
questionnaire with 29 questions and, based on this, gain
knowledge about a healthy lifestyle of the students. The results
obtained are statistically processed and evaluated on the basis of
percent-frequency analysis and Chi-squared test. In educational
research, the application of Chi-squared test can be found e.g. in
the authors (Barot, T., Krpec, R. 2018, 2019).
Hypotheses. Based on the goal and tasks of the work we built 10
hypotheses, which we approach in the results of this work.
Methods. Quantitative Analysis Applied on Achieved Results of
Observed Students. In the quantitative research, results of
questionnaires achieved from observed students were analyzed
using statistical methods of the mathematical induction. 46
samples of a bachelor studies and 55 samples of master degree
studies were appeared in this observed population file. The
population included students which belong to Faculty of
Education at Comenius University in Bratislava.
3 Results and discussion
Following particular statistical hypotheses 1H – 10H were
considered in the form of zero and alternative hypotheses:
1H0: There are not statistically significant dependences of an
assessment of a current healthy state on a type of a study
(bachelor or master degree).
1H1: There are statistically significant dependences of an
assessment of a current healthy state on a type of a study
(bachelor or master degree).
2H0: There are not statistically significant dependences of a
frequency of eating food on a type of a study (bachelor or master
degree).
2H1: There are statistically significant dependences of a
frequency of eating food on a type of a study (bachelor or master
degree).
3H0: There are not statistically significant dependences of a
frequency of eating fruits and vegetables on a type of a study
(bachelor or master degree).
3H1: There are statistically significant dependences of a
frequency of eating fruits and vegetables on a type of a study
(bachelor or master degree).
4H0: There are not statistically significant dependences of
monitoring the caloric value of eating foods on a type of a study
(bachelor or master degree).
4H1: There are statistically significant dependences of
monitoring the caloric value of eating foods on a type of a study
(bachelor or master degree).
5H0: There are not statistically significant dependences of a
frequency of drinking alcohol on a type of a study (bachelor or
master degree).
5H1: There are statistically significant dependences of a
frequency of drinking alcohol on a type of a study (bachelor or
master degree).
6H0: There are not statistically significant dependences of a
form of spending free-time on a type of a study (bachelor or
master degree).
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