Physical Activity Review (Dec 2016)
The comparison of selected lifestyle variables of first-year students at two universities in Košice
Abstract
The objective of the presented paper was to compare the selected variables of lifestyle in first-year students at two universities in Košice. The research sample group consisted of the first-year students of the P. J. Šafárik University in Košice (UPJŠ, n=918, 651 women and 267 men) and the Technical University in Košice (TUKE, n=653, 239 women and 414 men). We compiled our own test battery named “The risk factors of obesity and its prevention through physical activity” andadministered it to students at the beginning of the respective academic years (September 2012 and September 2013). Presented paper focuses on questions related to: the students' satisfaction with their lifestyle, students expressing a need to change theirlifestyle, frequency of structured physical activity, motivation to engage in structured physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and a structure of leisure activities. To process the collected data, we used the statistical software R. To test the significance of differences between the universities we used the Wilcoxon rank-sum test.No significant difference between the universities was found on variables indicating the satisfaction with lifestyle. The most repeated lifestyle components that students of both universities would like to change were physical activity and dietary habits. These data reflect the findings that in the last half year over 61.5 % of UPJŠ students and 48.9 % of TUKE students were engaged in structured physical activity either irregularly or they were not engaged in any structured physical activity at all. Another analysis of significant difference (p<0.001) between the two universities was employed to indicate the frequency with which students engaged in structured physical activity. The analysis revealed a higher frequency in students of TUKE. The analysis also confirmed that the gender of a respondent had a greater influence on that difference than the university they attended. The students of both universities indicated that figure (appearance), enjoyment, health and physical fitness were the main motivators for structured physical activity. The difference between the universities, with regard to variables indicating the time which students spent engaged in sedentary behaviours was significant (p<0.001) during both working days and weekend days, where gender had no influence on this difference. Sedentary behaviours prevailed among the most common leisure activities in students of both universities.At the beginning of their universitystudies, lifestyle of a large number of first-year students at the two universities is characterized by the low level of engagement in structured physical activity and by sedentary leisure activities, with the existing differences between genders and the universities.
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