“It is not easy to maintain healthy behavior every day”
Résumé
Introduction:
Increasingly, people seem to be falling into two health “categories”: to those, who are health conscious, and to those, who does not consider health as a priority or not have possibility in such. Since many health habits are largely formed and adopted in childhood, it is not insignificant how daily routines related to nutrition, hygiene, sleep, media use, or physical exercise are carried out (Mollborn et al., 2014; Rew et al., 2010). This study aims to examine how these routines are realized among 10-11 -year old schoolchildren in seven consecutive days. Additionally, possible noticeable patterns of either healthy or less healthy daily habits are examined.
Methods:
Twenty children aged 10-11 participated in the study. Data were collected via mobile devices (tablet or smart phone) through in-built health game during seven consecutive days. Each day the children answered to 12-14 questions concerning their daily activities. Children were asked, for example, to take a photo of their breakfast or teeth brushing (or indicate if no activities were actualized), writing their bedtime, or describe their weekend activities.
Results:
Preliminary findings (the study is ongoing at the time of abstract submission) show that the children behaviors can be divided at least in three categories. Even in relatively small sample, there are children who, for example, wash their teeth twice a day, eat healthy, and have a sufficient amount of sleep at night. The second group of children generally have healthy habits, but they are more flexible with those, and do not follow certain routines every single day. The third group of children clearly have habits that may become health threats, if they are not specifically addressed.
Conclusions:
Monitoring children’s health behaviors during one week brings valuable insights to a phenomenon of their health habits. The results confirm the polarization among children, even do not explain its reasons. While is known that contextual factors, such as home and school environments play an important role in children’s health learning, their own engagement in pursuing healthy lifestyle needs additional emphasis.