The attitudes towards and behavior of Greek pupils to nutrition, smoking, stress and physical activity

The aim of this particular study is to evaluate the habits of Greek male and female students, regarding healthy nutrition, physical activity, abstinence from smoking and stress control and to check if there are any differences in these areas between the sexes. For this study 163 male and female students from a private educational institute, average age eleven and a half, were tested. Our evaluation was done according to the questionnaire on healthy behaviour. It was found that the majority of students lead a healthy way of life regarding the four parameters we examined. Namely: they had healthy eating habits, train on a regular basis, do not smoke and satisfactorily control stressful situations. It was also found that there was no significant statistical difference between the boys and the girls, although it was found that girls seem to be better informed about foods they must avoid and are less likely to be tempted by them, have people to talk to when under pressure and are more able to refuse when offered a cigarette. The fact that it was also discovered that a small percentage of students seems to have adopted unhealthy habits encourages us to recommend the application of programmes that aim at teaching a broad spectrum of healthy attitudes.