Young Prisoners’ Attitudes towards Exercise, Smoking and their Physical Activity during Leisure Time

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes, views and perceptions of both the students in prison and the students of the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science (DPESS), concerning smoking and exercise. The participants in the research were 100 young students and 100 physical education students (men). Their age varied from 18 till 23 years. The participants were asked to fill a questionnaire that consisted of 3 parts. At the first part they answered questions about the exercise, at the second about smoking and at the third part they answered questions about their exercise behaviors in leisure time during a week. All scales had acceptable levels of internal consistency (α>60). The results showed that young prisoners
when compared with students had lower scores in attitudes, knowledge and information towards exercise as well as knowledge of the benefits coming out of exercise. Nevertheless, they had higher scores as far as physical activity is concerned than the students of DPESS, maybe because they have more leisure time. On the contrary, their attitudes towards smoking were higher compared with DPESS’ students.