The role of higher education in the formation of students’ healthy lifestyle

The article analyzes the problem of forming a healthy lifestyle of students. The current approach to deteriorating youth health encourages the search for new ways to generate positive motivation for a healthy lifestyle and scientific research. According to the literature data analysis, less than 15 % of students are considered healthy, 70 % of them have low and below-average levels of physical health, more than half (52.6 %) of them have different morphofunctional abnormalities, 36–40 % have chronic non-infectious diseases, which complicate the process of adaptation to physical and mental activity, impede learning lecture material as well as effective training at universities. The aim of the research was to evaluate and analyze the components of a healthy lifestyle of students and on this basis to determine approaches to the introduction of health-saving technologies in the educational process of higher schools. A survey of students revealed a lack of understanding of the simplest aspects of health care and an inability to assess one’s level of health adequately. 53 students (39.5 %) consider themselves healthy; 38 students (28.3 %) adhere to healthy lifestyles; and only 9 % of students regularly do physical exercises and sports. Only 25 % of them follow the diet. 82 % of students were well informed about the negative impact of bad habits on their health, but 66 % of respondents smoked cigarettes, including 43 % of women. 90 % of students occasionally consume alcoholic beverages, of whom 14 % often consume, and 8 % do not consume. Most of the respondents are confident in the absolute harmlessness of beer, which ranks the first place in the structure of alcoholic beverages consumed by students. But only 9 % of students regularly do physical exercises and sports. Therefore, the priority goals of the modern stage of higher education modernization should be the preservation and strengthening of students’ health, the formation of value orientations, their awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, the introduction of health-saving technologies into the educational process, as significant components in achieving career and life success of youths.