Forming the value of a healthy lifestyle among students through mathematical problems

Introduction: Mathematical skills are of great importance since they foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and logical reasoning. Mathematical competence focuses on enabling students to apply mathematical concepts in real-life contexts, particularly to form the value of a healthy lifestyle. Objective: To study the possibilities of shaping the student's value of a healthy lifestyle and health-preserving competence through integrating mathematics problems into the educational process.Methods: To achieve the research's aim, experimental research design was applied. The experiment involved 23 instructors from different regions of Ukraine who taught mathematics in the 5th grade. A total of 404 students participated in the study, with 250 forming the Experimental Group and 154 forming the Control Group. The intervention phase lasted 12 weeks and included 7 mathematics topics. The method of descriptive statistics was selected for data analysis.Results: Various teaching strategies are used in the mathematics classroom for the formation of the value of a healthy lifestyle. Students consider video-based activities and problems the most exciting and engaging. At the same time, text activities are found to be less effective in the mathematics classroom. Besides, the experiment demonstrated that students remembered the educational information better when they solved mathematics problems in the classroom and were engaged in active or interactive activities. Using mathematics to form the value of a healthy lifestyle offers several advantages and challenges. Conclusions: The results have significant implications for secondary education improvement and student development