Associate Professor, PhD O.A. Nemova¹
Associate Professor, PhD M.M. Kutepov¹
Associate Professor, PhD L.I. Kutepova¹
V.V. Retivina²
N.V. Frolova^1
1 Kozma Minin Nizhny Novgorod State University (Minin University), Nizhny Novgorod
²  Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubov, Nizhny Novgorod

Keywords: healthy lifestyle, values translating social and cultural mechanisms, youth.

Background. Health standards of the Russian people, as verified by the recent statistical reports, are still on the fall, and this trend raises concerns not only in the national health community, but also in demographers, politicians and the society on the whole. Objective public health metrics for the last twenty five years have demonstrated that the morbidity rates covering the key classes of diseases, including the lifestyle-specific disorders, have notably increased. Of special concern are the growing rates of sicknesses caused by unhealthy lifestyles.

The article considers the top priority issues with concern to the healthy lifestyle cultivation processes in the modern young generation. They need to be addressed by analyses of the relevant healthy lifestyle values translating social and cultural mechanisms to find the specific aspects and leading agents of the primary and secondary socialization etc. to translate the experience, values and key attitudes from one generation to the other.

Objective of the study was to identify the healthy lifestyle (HLS) values translating social and cultural mechanisms.

Methods and structure of the study. We performed a theoretical study of the healthy lifestyle values translating social and cultural mechanisms. The study was designed based on a content-analysis, SWAT-analysis and expert valuations. The sociological sampling under the study was designed to secure due representativeness of the study data. Experiments under the study were performed in the period of 2013-2016 at the higher educational establishments based in Nizhny Novgorod city, namely Kozma Minin Nizhny Novgorod State University (Minin University), and Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubov. Subject to the study were more than 1000 bachelor and masters’ course students, the sample being rated as representative for the sociological survey.

Study results and discussion. The recent surveys found the following paradoxical social fact: most of the Russian people (including youth) rate health above all other values but still are largely indifferent to own health showing prevalence of “wasteful” attitudes, i.e. being inclined to exploit the natural health resources taking no efforts not only to improve own health but even to protect and maintain it at more or less acceptable level. Let us give some sociological data obtained for the last five years as a case in point.

It is a matter of common belief that health is more and more appreciated with age when a person realizes that the body is getting older and is notably and increasingly exposed to senile degeneration. This phenomenon may be a subject to a special study as such. It was not long ago that even wishing health to a young person sounded ridiculous since young people, unlike senior ones, are naturally supposed to demonstrate good health and stamina. However, real situation is rapidly changing to the worse with the industrial and technological progress and growing mass consumption attitudes in different social strata, as demonstrated by the recent sociological survey reports. As found by V.V. Zagrebin, for instance, “health” value is given the top priority both by university students and school children, both male and female. By the scores in the opinion polls, this value was rated higher than such important values as “love” and “good devoted friends” [1, p. 126]. A sociological survey under the present study has confirmed the trend as the “health” value was rated among the top three values by the sample [5].

It may be due to the above that the young people tend to be more concerned than the elder ones by the health protection and improvement issues. There are reasons to assume that their parents grew feeling well protected by the health policies and ideals of the Soviet system when the physical culture and sport facilities were easily accessible and sporting practices were common elements of mass culture; and this might be the reason why they take efforts to involve their children to the practices they enjoyed so much in their green days. However, the weaker is the parents’ control with age and increasing independence and self-reliance of the children, the more the latter show their growing reluctance to go in for sports and opt instead for the forms of leisure that are simpler, easier and more popular. It is not unusual that young people of 14-30 years of age may be distracted from physical training and sporting practices by education, labour, marital relations etc. It is highly important that in the age of discretion when a person becomes fully responsible for own decisions and activities he/she has already well-developed internal needs for physical training and sport practices.

Bad habits and asocial behavioural models in the young generation are developed largely when leisure time is poorly organized and mismanaged. It is a common knowledge that when a child is not busy with studies or constructive activity in special groups or sport sections, he/ she is at risk of deviational and/or delinquent behavioural models, and this assumption is supported by sociological survey data [1, p. 126].

It is a family and close surrounding that are crucial for forming a foundation for a child’s spiritual and ethical system, values-driven attitudes and behavioural models. Spiritual and ethical values translating and cultivating mechanisms may vary across families, but they all are the same in the sense that family remains the key and most efficient institution in the values forming, retaining and translating process.

Of special importance in the values cultivation process is the problem of common behavioural rules and standards being formed in everyday life. There is no reason to explain the virtues of healthy lifestyle or risks of unhealthy actions to a child in a most detailed and moralizing manner when his/her family and close surrounding demonstrate socially negative lifestyles, since no advocacy for HLS has a chance for success as in this case. 

HLS-related-values translating process is dominated by everyday practices, i.e. those ordinary rules and traditions that are cultivated in the family life. And here we once again come to an interesting phenomenon. The senior generation tends to highly appreciate health as a top priority value but at the same time takes little if any efforts to keep up and improve own health standards. Leisure-time behavioural models of the seniors are generally dominated by very passive lifestyles as most of the free time the elder Russian people watch TV, keep houses, passively communicate with friends or relatives etc. Therefore, generally senior family members tend to realize their own wrongdoing when they waste the natural gift of health staying so passive in their lifestyles, and this is the prime reason, as we believe, for the senior generation still taking some efforts to cultivate healthy lifestyles and related values in their children and encourage them to go in for physical culture and sports.

Furthermore, it may be pertinent to mention the national advanced education (AE) system as an important social institution and social-culture-developing mechanism. Influences of the AE system on the HLS cultivation process are still less studied by the research community than the similar effects of the general education system. The AE system that was established in the Soviet times has been subject to serious changes in the modern period albeit it is still operable and effective enough. Moreover, in the Nizhny Novgorod case the AE system has retained it assets and even has been complemented to a degree by the relevant commercial sector services.

As we have mentioned before, the major reasons for public reluctance to go in for physical culture and sports as one of the means of healthy lifestyle cultivation process are dominated by the subjective ones that are generally associated with the growing wasteful and consumption-driven attitudes to the own health resources. There are quite a few objective reasons for that including, among other things, the present public inequality in access to the sport facilities. An annual ticket to the municipal “PhysCult” Training and Health Improvement Centre now costs around seventy thousand Roubles for a family of two adolescents and one child that means that the service is inaccessible for many Russian families and may be enjoyed only by those who have high incomes plus the relevant leisure time [2, 3]. It should be noted in this context that the leisure time shortage may be also ranked among the objective reasons for the non-sporting attitudes. High-intensity jobs, moonlight jobs, housekeeping cares etc. may reasonably be considered among objective reasons that give no chance for a family to find free time and willingness for a health improvement activity.

It should be mentioned that mass media organizations play a powerful role in the health values and attitudes cultivation process nowadays. Generally the MMO role in the HLS cultivation at present is expressly negative as we see it. First of all, as verified by multiple sociological survey reports, the family leisure time is presently dominated by the TV watching, and this passive habit largely distracts people from more constructive leisure time activities. Second, the HLS cultivation initiatives are effectively countered by expressly adverse behavioural models fostered via TV. Popular characters of the TV movies, serials and broadcasts designed mostly for the young people openly demonstrate destructive and dissocial behavioural models – like prostitution featured as a descent profession for a young woman (“Real'nye patsany" (Real Guys) serial), smoking (“Interny" (Interns) serial), promiscuity (“Univer” (University) and “Dom-2" (House-2) serials) etc.

Conclusion. The role of the physical culture and sport practices for the health of new generation cannot be overestimated. Knowledge, skills and abilities fostered by physical culture practices are pivotal not only for the physical development but also for the spiritual and ethical progress of a young personality. The positive behavioural models accepted and naturally cultivated in childhood will later on be translated to children and grandchildren, and this is the reason why special attention is to be given to the studies of the inter-generation social-and-cultural values and experience translating mechanisms.

To optimize the youth-focused social policies in the public health improvement and HLS promotion domain, we offer the following initiatives:

1. Large-scale outreach mass-media campaign to promote the health improvement technologies and HLS and cultivate HLS as a new fashion.

2. Government support needs to be provided (through grants and bidding mechanisms) to the TV projects promoting HLS-related values - to make fitness, physical culture and sport practices fashionable in the first place and with time cultivate them as natural habits and genuine needs for the majority of the national population.

3. Develop and establish a family-focused social and economic HLS-centred infrastructure. In addition to basic children’s playgrounds, yard sports equipment and necessary social facilities (including preschool establishments, outpatients clinics, swimming pools, advanced education institutions), the family-focused social and economic HLS-centred infrastructure should offer descent jobs for senior family members. New jobs and convenient locations and designs of the sport facilities will help remove or minimize the objective obstacles for the Russian people engagement in physical culture and sports.

Summarizing the above, we should underline that the issues of the positive values and HLS-centred attitudes cultivation in the young people should be given a top priority today, since the young people’s physical, spiritual and ethical health standards are critical for the future of the Russian nation and the quality of its reproductive, labour and civil potential.

References

1. Zagrebin V.V. Potreblenie psikhoaktivnykh veschestv uchashcheysya molodezh'yu (regional'ny aspekt) (Consumption of psychoactive substances by studying youth (regional aspect): PhD thesis / V.V. Zagrebin. – N. Novgorod, NNSU (NNGU). – 2015. – 250 p.
2. Kutepov M.M. Tekhnologiya formirovaniya professional'nykh umeniy u budushchikh spetsialistov v oblasti fizicheskoy kul'tury (Physical education specialists' skills building technology): PhD thesis. – Nizhniy Novgorod, 2003. –163 p.
3. Kutepova L.I. Didakticheskie usloviya formirovaniya professional'nykh kompetentsiy (Didactic conditions of formation of professional competences) / L.I. Kutepova // Sovremennye tendentsii razvitiya tekhnologo-ekonomicheskogo obrazovaniya (Modern development trends in technological and economic education). – N. Novgorod, 2014. – P. 32-39.
4. Nemova O.A. Rol' semi v formirovanii trudovykh ustanovok studencheskoy molodezhi (Family in formation of occupational attitudes of students): Monograph / O.A. Nemova, T.A. Pakina, V.V. Retivina. – N. Novgorod: Volga region. – 2013. – 150 p.

Corresponding author: nhl_@list.ru

Abstract

The study was intended to study the values translating social and cultural mechanisms applied to foster healthy lifestyles in the new generation. Broad-based sociological data were used to make an overview of the key trends in the world-outlook-driven attitudes in different generations of the Russian people to the health agenda in general and healthy lifestyles in particular. The article presents findings of a few sociological surveys focused on health as a base value.

The study data and analysis demonstrated benefits of the relevant healthy lifestyle values translating social and cultural mechanisms, including family, education (with the advanced educational system) and mass media. The study also considers the key performance specifics of the above mechanism and their real effects on the healthy lifestyle values fostering process. It is a family as a pivotal social institution that plays a central role in the set of the above three social and cultural mechanisms, for it is largely through everyday communication, love and relations in a family that the world-outlook-related values and behavioural models are being formed. On the other hand, the effects of family on the human consciousness should not be overestimated. The young people’s world-outlook-related values and behavioural models may be additionally cultivated and corrected by education (including advanced education) institutions and mass media organizations. 

The article gives practical cases of how the above healthy lifestyle values translating social and cultural mechanisms have been applied to foster healthy lifestyles in the young people of Nizhny Novgorod. The study worked out recommendations on how the young people’s conscious attitudes to own health may be fostered and asocial behavioural models may be prevented and corrected. General recommendations are made to form and improve the youth-health-sensitive social policies in the national physical culture and sports sector.