Unhealthy Lifestyle Practices and its’ Associated Factors among Young Boys in an Indian Urban Setting

 

K. P. Syama¹ and Dr. N. Audinarayana²*

¹Research Scholar, Dept. of Sociology and Population Studies, Director, School of Social Sciences, Bharathiar University,  Coimbatore – 641 046

²Professor and Head, Dept. of Sociology and Population Studies, Director, School of Social Sciences, Bharathiar University,  Coimbatore – 641 046

 

INTRODUCTION:

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.

 

Theoretical Propositions and Earlier Research

Many studies have been conducted in India and abroad describing the young people participating in unhealthy lifestyle habits which may cause various health problems in their later adulthood. Generally, it is expected that socio-demographic characteristics of the young people often influence their lifestyle habits, those who are better in their socio-economic position may well accessed to their wants.

 

Further, living in a world greatly controlled by mass media makes it impossible to escape its pervading influences on the young people. In terms of media effects, younger generations, who have underdeveloped self-regulatory abilities, are more likely to imitate behaviours modeled in media sources. It is also argued that lack of religious beliefs may influence the young generation in preventing from guilty consciousness to adopt certain habits especially Indian context wherein religious sentiments are deep rooted among the people. It is expected that, parental supervision and monitoring may also control the behavior of young people to a certain extent. It can be also argued that parents who are lenient in monitoring and supervising their children are in some way may negatively influence their children’s habits. Likewise, the number of close friends participating in unhealthy lifestyle habits would seems to influence the young boys to a great extent. As stated earlier, a large number of studies both in Indian and international context have supported one or the other of these theoretical propositions (Sharma et al., 2008; Kokiwar and Jogdand, 2011; Rustagy et al., 2011; Agarwal and Dhanasekharan, 2012; Linder and Werner, 2012; Audinarayana and Tiwari 2013; Syama, 2013;)

 

OBJECTIVES:

The following are the major objectives of the present study:

1.      To understand the extent of unhealthy habits practiced by the young college boys.

2.      To examine the differentials in the mean score of unhealthy habits of the respondents across their background characteristics.

3.      To find out the major determinants of the overall unhealthy habits practiced by the young college boys.

 

DATA AND METHODS:

The universe of the study is 5 arts and science colleges located in Coimbatore city Tamil Nadu, which were selected purposively. The data was collected from a sample of 211 male students (18 – 21 years) studying II and III year undergraduate courses, who were selected based on convenient sampling. The study was carried out with the help of the interview schedule about their background characteristics and their frequency of participation in unhealthy habits such as alcohol, smoking and smokeless tobacco and the supervision and monitoring level of parents.

 

 

Dependent Variable:

In the present study, Overall (extent) Unhealthy Lifestyle Habits (Index) is considered as the dependent variable.  For this purpose the young boys have been asked to give their responses to eight unhealthy lifestyle habits, viz., gambling with cards, chewing tobacco, cigarette smoking, drinking habits, use of drugs, watching blue films and reading and browsing pornography. A score of ‘1’ has been assigned to each of the unhealthy habits when the young boys ‘taken up or participated’ in a particular unhealthy lifestyle habit and ‘0’ has been assigned if ‘not participated’. Then, the pooled scores of these for each respondent (boy) has been computed, varies in the range of 0-8, which form a single index of overall unhealthy habits (Table 1).

 

Explanatory Variables:

Selected demographic, social and economic characteristics of the young boys have been taken into consideration as explanatory variables (independent variables). Most of these variables are self explanatory (for details see Table 2), except exposure to mass media (index), religiosity of the respondents (index) and parental supervision (index). Details of all these indexes are provided in Appendix.

 

Data has been analyzed in three stages. At the first stage, frequency tables have been prepared to understand the various socio–demographic and other background characteristics of the young boys as well as the magnitude of their participation in unhealthy lifestyle habits. In next stage, differentials in the overall unhealthy habits (index) of the young boys across their background characteristics have been examined with the help of mean scores and one-way ANOVA. In the final stage, the determinants of overall unhealthy lifestyle habits (index) of the young college boys have been analysed with Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. All these analyses have been carried out with the help of IBM SPSS Software version 22.0.

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Unhealthy Lifestyle Habits of the Young College Boys

Data provided in panel 1 of Table 1 highlights that majority of the students have the habit of drinking alcohol (59%), whereas a little less than half each of them have the habits of smoking cigarettes (47%) watching blue films (46%) and browsing pornographic sites (44%). Nearly one-fifth each of them has the habit of chewing tobacco and reading pornographic materials (18% each) followed by card gambling and use of drugs. As stated earlier, in order to understand the overall level of participation in unhealthy lifestyle habits an index has been developed (score ranges from 0–8) and provide the same in panel 2 of Table 1. From this it is inferred that, nearly three-tenths of them are not at all involved in any kind of unhealthy habits discussed above and the rest large proportion involved in one or the other unhealthy habits. Details show that around one-sixth of them are accustomed to 1–2 unhealthy habits and rest of them habituated to 3 or more unhealthy habits under consideration.

 

Table-1: Percentage Distribution of the Young Boys who have

Ever Participated in Unhealthy Lifestyle Habits                (N = 211)

 

 

Background Characteristics of the Respondents

Information about different background characteristics of the young boys are given in Table 2 (Column 2 and 3). Among the sample young boys, more than half (57%) are in the age group of 18 –19 years. Majority of the respondents are Hindus (55%) and nearly a quarter of them (24%) are Christians closely followed by Muslims (21%). Around one-third of them (32%) are Most Backward Castes closely followed by Backward Castes (27%), Scheduled Castes (22%) and Other Castes (22%). More than half of the respondents have six or more close friends (52%), whereas three-tenths of them are having 3–5 friends and have 1–2 friends. A large number of respondents (69%) reported that they are less religious. A simple majority of the young boys (44%) are exposed to mass media to a moderate extent, whereas three-tenths of them (30%) have such exposure to a high extent and the remaining to a lower extent. Majority of the respondents (60%) are living in hostel/rented rooms/as paying guest. Nearly half of the respondents reported that their parents are lenient in controlling and monitoring their day-to-day activities, a little less than two-fifths of them revealed that their parents are moderate and the rest less than one-fifth of them reported that their parents are very strict in controlling and monitoring their day-to day activities. A large percentage of the respondents (70%) are from nuclear families and three-tenths of them (30%) are from non-nuclear families.

 

Differentials in the Overall Unhealthy Lifestyle Habits (index) of the young boys across their Background Characteristics

Information provided in panel 1 of Table 2 (columns 4 – 5)shows that the mean scores of unhealthy habits noted to be higher among 20 – 21 age group (3.20)  than their younger counterparts (2.07) and the ANOVA results too turned out as highly significant (p<0.001). The mean score of unhealthy habits is noted to be higher among those boys who belong to Other Castes followed by Backward Castes, Most Backward Castes and Scheduled Castes in that order. But these results did not turn out as statistically significant (panel 2). Respondents’ mean scores of unhealthy habits noted to be much higher when they have more number of friends (6+ and 3 – 5) and exposed to mass media to a higher and moderate extent than their counterparts (panels 3 – 4).

 

 

 

Table-2: Distribution of Young Boys and Mean Scores of Overall Unhealthy Habits (Index) by their Background Characteristics

 

 

 

 

It is conspicuous to note that the mean scores of unhealthy habits are higher among those who live in rented room/hostel/guest as well as those who are from nuclear family set up than their respective counterparts (panels 5 – 6). ANOVA results in these cases turned out as highly significant (p<0.001). It is pertinent to note that the mean score of unhealthy habits of young boys is higher among those whose parents are lenient/moderate in supervising their activities than those whose parents are strict in monitoring such daily activities (panel 7) and the ANOVA results also turned out as highly significant (p<0.001). It is also interesting to note that the mean score of unhealthy habits observed to be lower among those who are more religious (panel 8) than those who are not, but ANOVA results in this regard turned out significant to a moderate extent (p<0.05).

 

Determinants of Overall Unhealthy Lifestyle Habits

In order to find out the principal determinants of the extent of unhealthy habits of young boys, multiple linear regression technique has been carried out and the results are presented in Table 3. On the whole, all the eight variables included in the model together explained about 31 percent of variation in overall unhealthy lifestyle habits. Mass media (index) and current age of the young boys have demonstrated highly significant (p<0.01) positive net effects on their overall unhealthy habits. These results indicate that an increase in the exposure to mass media and age of the respondents would result into an increase in the overall participation in unhealthy lifestyle habits. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the extent of parental supervision has demonstrated a significant (p<0.01) negative net effect on the young boys’ overall unhealthy habits (index). Likewise, young boys’ accommodation in own / relatives’ house appeared to be negatively influencing their overall unhealthy lifestyle habits as compared to those who are living in rented rooms / hostel / paying guest.

 

Caste and type of family background of the young boys have also showed independent net effects on their overall unhealthy lifestyle habits (index). While young boys belong to non-SC / ST community tend to participate more and more in unhealthy lifestyle habits as compared to their SC / ST counterparts (p<0.05), young boys residing in nuclear families appears to be more habituated to unhealthy habits than their counterparts from joint families (p<0.10). It is conspicuous to note that an increase in the total number of close friends to young boys tend to force them to practice the unhealthy lifestyle habits, whereas their extent of religiosity discouraged such practices; however, the t-value in these regard didn’t turn out as statistically significant.

 

Table-3: Results of Multiple Regression Analysis on Young

College Boys’ Overall Unhealthy Lifestyle Habits (Index)

Explanatory Variables	Beta Coefficients	t-value	Significance level
Respondents Age	.169	2.765	0.01
Respondents’ Caste (Ref. SC)	.142	2.275	0.05
Total number of Close Friends	.114	1.448	0.15
Exposure to Mass media                                 (index)	.195	3.109	0.01
Mode of Accommodation    (Ref. Rent/Hostel/Guest)	-.192	-2.976	0.01
Type of Family (Ref. Joint Family)	.121	1.858	0.10
Parental Supervision (index)	-.215	-2.716	0.01
Respondents’ Religiosity                                               (index)	-.074	-1.193	0.23
R-Square (%) P-Value N	31.1 0.000 211

 

 

 

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:

Overall, the study highlights that the young boys tend to participate in different lifestyle habits to a large extent which is socially, physically or medically termed as unhealthy. Almost all the propositions postulated in this study have been supported by the empirical data with different levels of significance. As age increases, the young boys seem to be participating to a great extent in unhealthy behaviours such as smoking, drinking alcohol and other substance use. Similarly, as the exposure to mass media increases the young boys’ participation in unhealthy habits also rises to a higher extent. It is evident from the data that young boys who are living in own / relatives’ house are appeared to be less in involving themselves in the unhealthy behaviours than those who are living in rented rooms / hostel / as paying guest during their college life. Additionally, young boys who are better monitored or supervised by their parents are less likely to involve in unhealthy behaviours. Likewise, there is some support by the data that young boys whom so ever have large number of peers are more likely to participate in unhealthy lifestyle habits. Religious faith (index) also appears to be having a significant negative effect on the young boys overall unhealthy lifestyle practices whereas caste status doesn’t seems to influence the boys’ behaviours.

 

This study recommends certain policy measures. First of all, overall efforts have to be taken to create awareness about ill-effects and after effects of adopting these lifestyle habits, which would be from the grass root level ie., from their own home, parents should be better informed about these matters with the help of various media channels with the support of the government and other NGO’s. It is advisable to transmit the religious values and encourage the younger generation to accept those values and norms of their respective religion which can be used for the betterment of future generation. These efforts should be started at a very younger age through moral education from the school level and parents should monitor these activities in a better way. Religious study centers of the respective religions should also encourage imparting these knowledge to younger generation. It can also be recommended that, parents should be well informed about the positive and negative sides of the advanced communication technologies through various mass media channels for the betterment of public interest.

 

REFERENCES:

Agarwal, Vivek, and Saranya Dhanasekaran, 2012. “Harmful Effects of Media on Children and Adolescents”, J. Indian Assoc. Child Adolesc. Ment. Health  8(2):38–45.

Audinarayana, N., and Mahalaxmi Tiwari, 2013. “Young Boys’ Participation in Risky Lifestyles and its Determinants in a South Indian Rural Setting”, In: Emerging Research Paradigms in Social Sciences, G. Ganesan et al. (Eds.). London and New Delhi: Bloomsbury Publishing Pvt. Ltd., pp. 158–166.

Devi, M. Tineshowri, 2010. Reproductive Health and Adolescent Girls, New Delhi: Akansha Publishing House.

Kokiwar, Prashant R. and Gopal Rao S. Jogdand., 2011. “Prevalence of Substance Use among Male Adolescents in an Urban Slum Area of Karimnagar District, Andhra Pradesh”, Indian Journal of Public Health 55(1): 42–45.

Laska, Melissa Nelson, Keryn E. Pasch, Katherine Lust, Mary Story, Ed Ehlinger, 2009. “Latent Class Analysis of Lifestyle Characteristics and Health Risk Behaviors among College Youth”, Preventive Science 10: 376–386.

Linder, Jennifer Ruh and Nicole E. Werner, 2012. “Relationally Aggressive Media Exposure and Children’s Normative Beliefs: Does Parental Mediation Matter?” Family Relations 61(7): 488–500.

Nakata, Akinori., Masaya Takahashi, Takashi Haratani, Tomoko Ikeda, Minoru Hojou, Yosei Fujioka, and Shunichi Araki, 2008. “Association of Active and Passive Smoking with Sleep Disturbances and Short Sleep Duration among Japanese working Population”, International Journal of Behavioural Medicine 15: 81–91.

Poulin, Francois and Anne-Sophie Denault, 2012. ”Other –Sex friendship as a mediator between parental monitoring and substance use in girls and boys”, Journal of Youth Adolescence 10(5): 1–11.

Rustagy, N,  D K Thaneja, P Mishra, G K Ingle,. 2011.  “Cardiovascular risk behaviour among students of a medical college in Delhi”. Indian Journal of Community Medicine 36(1): 51–53.

Sharma, Rahul, Vijay L Grover and Sanjay Chaturvedi, 2008. “Risk Behaviours Related to Inter-personal Violance Among School and College-going Adolescence in South Delhi”, Indian Journal of Community Medicine 33(2): 85–88.

Syama, K. P., 2013. Lifestyle Habits of Young College Boys: A Study in Tamil Nadu, Unpublished M. Phil. Dissertation. Coimbatore: Department of Sociology and Population Studies, Bharathiar University.

WHO, 2000. Health and Health Behaviour among Young People, Copenhagen: World Health Organization.

www.censusindia.com

 

 

APPENDIX:

1. Exposure to Mass media (Index)

                  Reading papers/ magazines

                  Watching movie

                     Watching cable TV                                        Never =0,

                     Listening to FM radio                                    occasionally =1

                     Browsing Social Networking Sites               Frequently =1

 

 

2. Religiosity of the respondents (Index)

 

            How religious are you?

            Do you participate in pooja/prayers/religious functions at home?

                   Not at all 

                   Uncertain                     0

                   Somewhat

 

                   Moderate

                   Very much                   1

 

3. Parental Supervision (Index)

                  Watching cable TV at late night

                  Going to picnic without permission

                  Getting up late in the morning

                  Reading the novels/ magazines/ study books                                             Extremely lenient(0)

                  Speaking to girl friends over phone for a long time                                   Lenient    (1) 

                  Going to party/ dinner/cinema with girls without permission                   Uncertain (2)

                  Playing games and coming late in the evening                                           Strict        (3)

                  Spending money                                                                                               Extremely strict  (4)

                  Mobile phone contacts                                                                                   

                  Browsing Social Networking Sites