Evaluation of health behaviors of children from 4-6 classes of primary school living in the villages of the Lublin and Lodz voivodeships

Jankowska Paula, Jankowski Krzysztof, Rudnicka Drożak Ewa. Evaluation of health behaviors of children from 4-6 classes of primary school living in the villages of the Lublin and Lodz voivodeships. Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2018;8(7):488-498. eISNN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1344416 http://ojs.ukw.edu.pl/index.php/johs/article/view/5769 https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/873616 The journal has had 7 points in Ministry of Science and Higher Education parametric evaluation. Part b item 1223 (26/01/2017). 1223 Journal of Education, Health and Sport eissn 2391-8306 7 © The Authors 2018; This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author (s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial license Share alike. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper. Received: 02.06.2018. Revised: 18.06.2018. Accepted: 31.07.2018. Evaluation of health behaviors of children from 4-6 classes of primary school living in the villages of the Lublin and Lodz voivodeships Paula Jankowska, Krzysztof Jankowski, Ewa Rudnicka-Drożak Chair and Department of Family Medicine, Medical University of Lublin ABSTRACT Introduction Health behaviors shape throughout life. The family is the first educational environment of the child, in which health habits are created. Nutrition and nutritional status in childhood and early adolescence determine the health of an adult person to a large extent. Lack of physical activity can bring with it many negative effects, including overweight and obesity in children, metabolic syndrome, lack of motor coordination. Objective The aim of the study was to assess health awareness and attitudes of children from classes IV-VI of rural primary schools in the Lublin and Lodz voivodeships. Material and methods The study group consisted of 65 children from classes 4 to 6 attending primary schools in the Lublin and Łódź voivodships. There were 34 girls and 31 boys among the respondents. The diagnostic survey method used a questionnaire constructed by the authors. The obtained results were statistically analyzed using the STATISTICA 12.5 program. Results Only 43.08% of respondents ate 5 recommended meals. As many as 55.38% of children ate sweets several times a week, and 7.69% - every day. 66.15% of respondents stated that they consumed fresh vegetables and fruits every day, and 24.62% - several times a week. The vast majority of children ate breakfast before going to school (73.85%). A very worrying fact is that over a quarter of children's physical activity was limited to physical education only. Children assessed their knowledge of the principles of a healthy lifestyle: 23.08% - great, 53.85% - good, 20% - average and 3.08% poor. Conclusions Sweats and sweet drinks were disturbingly common in children's diets. The frequency of children's consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits could be described as satisfactory. An important problem was the low physical activity. Keywords: Diet, Healthy Lifestyle, Chil