Development of health culture among senior high school students by means of physical culture

Abstract

In the conditions of the modern educational environment, marked by the intensification of educational loads and the predominance of hypodynamic behavior among senior high school students, the formation of a health culture as an integrative personal characteristic that combines cognitive, axiological, activity, and reflexive components ensuring a conscious and responsible attitude to an individual's physical, mental, and social well-being acquires particular importance. Analysis of pedagogical practice reveals that the potential of the academic discipline of physical culture in this direction is insufficiently utilized, since the traditional approach is oriented primarily toward normative requirements and the development of motor qualities, resulting in a decline in students' interest in classes, reaching forty percent in some regions. Rethinking the substantive and methodological foundations of physical culture education from the standpoint of a cultural paradigm makes it possible to view the means of physical culture not only as a tool for physical improvement but also as a space for cultural self-determination and for translating theoretical knowledge about health into the realm of personal bodily experience through mechanisms of self-regulation, self-monitoring of functional state, and awareness of the relationship between motor activity and the productivity of intellectual activity. The diagnostic results demonstrate a pronounced unevenness in the development of the components of health culture, where the cognitive and value aspects are relatively better formed than the activity and reflexive ones, with the proportion of low indicators for the latter exceeding fifty and sixty percent, respectively, which confirms the gap between declared attitudes and actual behavior. The introduction of modernized approaches, including the integration of theoretical and valeological modules into the structure of classes, the keeping of individual health diaries for recording well-being indicators and systematic reflection, as well as the implementation of health-oriented projects, contributes to a significant increase in the level of all components, with more than a twofold increase in the high level of the cognitive component, a reduction in the low level of the activity component by twenty-six percentage points, and similar positive changes in the reflexive component. At the same time, more pronounced positive dynamics are observed in indicators of physical fitness according to tests for speed, endurance, flexibility, and strength compared to traditional programs, without a decrease in the motor density of lessons, which is confirmed by statistically significant differences. Correlation analysis reveals a strengthening of the relationships between the components of health culture and physical fitness, particularly pronounced for the activity component, as well as a transformation of the motivational sphere toward the predominance of internal motives such as strengthening health, emotional release, and interest in the content of classes instead of external factors such as receiving grades. These changes testify to the productivity of an integrative approach that ensures simultaneous influence on all structural elements of health culture and creates a foundation for long-term conscious health-preserving behavior that persists beyond the school period. This emphasizes the need for appropriate training of teaching staff to implement such programs in the practice of physical culture education for senior high school students.