The changes of health and physical activity of first year students of Lithuanian academy of education

Problematic issue – did students’ health and physical activity change, comparing the results of the study of 2000 and 2008. The aim of the work – to disclose the changes in health and physical activity of first year students of Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education. The tasks of the work: 1. To assess the changes of health of first year students (males and females) of LAPE. 2. To ascertain the peculiarities of changes in physical activity. 3. To compare the changes of health and physical activity in the aspect of gender. Health and physical activity of first year students of Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education were analyzed in the work. The method of the study – anonymous questionnaire, the object – changes of health and physical activity. It is hypothesized in the work that positive changes are located in the indicators of health and physical activity of the students when comparing the data of 2000 and 2008. The first anonymous survey of first year students of Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education was conducted in May 2000, and the second one in May 2008, i.e. by the time they were finishing the second semester of their studies. 263 students took part in the first survey (158 of them were females, the rate of response – 81,6 percent), and 314 students took part in the second survey (175 of them were females, the rate of response – 80,5 percent). In conformity with the data of the study it can be suggested that absolute majority of first year students of academy subjectively assessed their health as quite good and good at the end of the spring semester of 2008 (males – 96,3 percent, females – 92,1 percent). On the other hand, in comparison with the data of 2000 one can see that girls assessed their health somewhat lower (males – 97,6 percent, females – 95,9 percent). Although students estimate their health quite good, the results of the study showed that for students who entered their first year in 2008, different psychosomatic and somatic malaises were expressed more in comparison with the year 2000: males were troubled by sleeping disorders more often, and females, besides these disorders, complained of headaches, neck and shoulder and back aches more often. During the time of the study the number of first year students of LAPE exercising 2 or 3 and more times a week decreased from 79,4 to 62,2 percent. The data of the study show the reduction of physical activity related to the rate of performing physical exercises during spare time among females (2000 – 71,2 percent, 2008 – 42,5 percent). The changes of this activity among males were less significant (2000 – 87,6 percent, 2008 – 81,8 percent) (p