Jordan’s Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) will release a study in the next two weeks on the prevailing life styles and the hygienic and health practices of Jordanian youth, according to Jordan Times on Monday.
Compiled over a one-year span, the study has surveyed 1,000 male and female students from public and private schools in Amman to identify their needs with a view to developing educational programs, said the English daily.
Health officials involved in the survey were quoted as saying the study was necessary to learn about how teenagers in the 14-17 year age group deal with hygiene, dietary habits as well as social problems.
The study is also designed to check whether those students tend to seek consultancy or opt to hide their problems.
"The study which was conducted last year and finalized by January 2001, has provided us with in-depth and detailed data on the state of youth enrolled in public and private schools," said Muna Hamzeh, chief officer of the Health Ministry's educational department.
"We gathered intriguing results on the life styles as well as physical and psychological problems facing Jordanian teenagers and ways to tackle those disorders," Hamzeh told the Jordan Times.
According to preliminary findings obtained by the Jordan Times, the majority of schoolchildren avoid eating healthy meals and tend to smoke.
The study established that 68 percent of the 1,000 students eat one meal during school hours that mainly consists of junk food.
"We found that most teenagers do not eat healthy food and not enough meals, 25 per cent eat only two meals a day, 27 per cent do not drink milk at all, and 46 per cent drink milk sometimes," noted Hamzeh.
According to the official, the study "targeted youth in particular because they form a high rate of the Jordanian society and it is important to meet their needs.”
Youth forms the majority of the community, those between the ages of 10-19 years, make up 26.8 percent of the Kingdom's five million population, said the paper.
Regarding hygiene, the study revealed that 84 percent brush their teeth, among which 33 percent brush their teeth twice a day, 27 percent once and 20 percent three times, which is, according to the study, a very good percentage but needs to be increased further.
Eighty-five percent of students said they practice sports, which means that most children lead a healthy life regarding the activation of their body, mind and soul.
On the other hand, the study revealed that compared to their ages, there is a high percentage of children who smoke, of whom 25 percent have tried smoking while seven per cent are still smokers, and about three per cent smoke a number of five cigarettes per day
According to World Bank statistics, Jordan spent JD 347m (about $500m) on health services in 1995 – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
