Healthy Lifestyle Self-Management Strategies of Sports School Students

Introduction: The current state of society and the pace of its development make high demands on human health. Formation of a healthy lifestyle of high school student athletes has its own peculiarities associated with their specific way of life and sport-related requirements. Objectives: To identify strategies of healthy lifestyle self-management of sports school students and to develop recommendations for their improvement. Materials and methods: The questionnaire-based survey was conducted in May 2024. The sample consisted of 202 students of sports schools of the city of Lipetsk. The sample was multistage, with quota sampling at the final stage. Along with the questionnaire-based survey, document analysis and frequency analysis were used. Results: The data analysis showed that adequate understanding of a healthy lifestyle was formed only in 32.7 % of the sports school students. We found that some student athletes lacked knowledge, skills, and abilities to analyze important components of a healthy lifestyle: 40.1 %, 51.5 %, and 25.2 % of the students neglected the analysis of nutrition, sleep, and physical activity, respectively. Depending on the strategies of nutrition, physical activity, and active interaction with the coach, parents and friends, three types of self-management strategies rated as “excellent”, “good”, and “satisfactory” were identified, the indicators of which became the basis for the development of recommendations for their improvement. The highest self-assessment based on 12 indicators was given to the “excellent” management strategy, which was based primarily on a high level of support from the coach, family, and friends. Conclusion: The study revealed the main structural elements of the healthy lifestyle self-management strategy of high school student athletes. For each component of the management strategy, the key parameters describing the existing “positive” and “negative” strategies were identified, on the basis of which recommendations of cognitive, organizational, managerial, and informational nature were developed to improve these self-management strategies.