Forming of modern Russian youth’s social representations about maintaining health: condition and problems

Abstract

The article deals with the study of health maintaining among Russian youth. Based on data from all-Russian surveys and presented in relevant studies, the contradictions between the value perception of health and destructive health practices among young people were found. In this regard, based on the understanding of health conservation as a purposeful activity, in the structure of which the cognitive component plays a significant role, the author underlines to study young people’s ideas about health and health caring in order to realise the reasons of differences between the state of health and the attitude of Russian youth. In this regard, the author conducted a study of the structure of social ideas of young Russians. The theoretical basis of the study was the key provisions of the concept of social representations by S. Moscovici. The empirical basis was the data of the author’s empirical study “Health Saving of Modern Russian Youth: Ideas and Practices”. Based on the results of the study, it was established that the core of modern youth’s social ideas about health conservation are traditional images and ideas that reflect the most characteristic of Russian society and its health conservation culture, but in a limited format. The peripheral zone includes components such as breaking bad habits, well-being, and maintaining emotional stability. The least characteristic of young Russians is the connection between ideas about health and health preservation with institutional practices of clinical examination and preventive examinations, which suggests a decrease in the role of the medical institute as an agent of social control in relation to health in the ideas of the younger generation. Thus, the social ideas of young Russians about health and the practices of its preservation, along with traditional ideas, are distinguished by features, the formation of which, according to the author, is due to the influence of new agents of healthy lifestyle socialization and the online-sources