ABSTRACT:
World Health Organization defines “adolescence” as 10 – 19 years old, “youth” as 15 – 24 years old, and “young people” as 10-24 years old (WHO, 2000). Today, more than half of India’s population is under the age of 25, with 65 percent of the population under 35. It was projected that by 2020, India’s average age will be just 29 years, in comparison with 37 in China and the United States, 45 in Western Europe and 48 in Japan (www.censusindia.com). In the Indian context, young people are affected by the rapid and wide expansion of education which in turn affected the social structure of Indian society. Family and friends play a crucial role in shaping the character of the adolescent youth. Exposure to westernization and mass media strongly influenced the younger generation, especially the college students (Devi, 2010). In their later adolescence, when these young people entered into their college life, they were prone to unhealthy lifestyles like smoking, alcohol consumption, drug abuse and unprotected sexual intercourse etc. Tobacco use, alcohol abuse, and frequent use of marijuana are examples of damaging substance use behaviours that typically peak during late adolescence and young adulthood. Studies have shown that smoking and alcohol use tend to have a detrimental effect on physical and psychological health of young people (Nakata et al., 2008; Laska et al., 2009; Poulin et al., 2012). Sociologically, alcoholism affects human values badly like broken marriages, ruined careers and neglected children. In case of young boys it also affects the mental health in addition to lessening the chances of getting employment / work in certain places (Audinarayana and Tiwari, 2013).With this background, in this paper, an attempt is made to study the extent of unhealthy habits practiced by the young boys and its associated factors which leads them to engage in certain habits with empirical data collected from Coimbatore city Tamil Nadu.