Efekty psychologiczne uczestnictwa młodzieży gimnazjalnej w treningu promującym zdrowy styl życia

In this article we analyse how participation in a healthy life style training program affected self-esteem and positive thinking of pupils from 4 post-primary schools of Mazovia Province. Teenagers participating in “Winners’ Training” were involved in action and encouraged to take responsibility for their own development in an area of physical fitness and psychological well- being. 21 days long training, covering healthy nutrition training, intensive physical exercise training, and positive thinking training, resulted – apart from noted increase of physical parameters – in improvement of reported by participants psychological well-being, and increase of the level of their self-esteem and of the level of positive thinking The factor, which most clearly affected the variation of obtained results, was the level of commitment to the entire program on the part of school top management, which resulted in greater commitment of involved teachers, and finally in greater commitment of pupils, who put more attention and effort in the training. Teenagers voluntarily participating in the program in “more committed” schools received not only coaching, but also a lot of positive information about the program and the issues it covered, and more appreciation of their participation in it. As it seems, the increase of the measured psychological parameters resulted to greater degree from the level of individual commitment than from the measured increase of physical fitness.