A research done in Scotland revealed that smoking and drinking habits in school kids are influenced by happy teachers, health education program in classroom and encouragement of good behavior.
Dr. Marion Henderson of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at Glasgow University conducted this study. 446 students at three Scottish schools were questioned about their smoking and drinking habits. The staff at the school was also interviewed. Each school’s attitude towards health education was also observed. The general teaching and behavioral policies were also assessed.6% of the students smoked and 10% of them drank alcohol at the school with the best health-education record, that had routine health education in classroom and health related programs like No Smoking Day. The staff had an extra room for relaxation and attended courses on relaxation. The students’ good-behavior was rewarded.
On the contrary, 36% of the students smoked and 33% of them drank alcohol at the school with the worst health-education record, that had no plans for staff happiness and strictly restricted students for bad-behavior.
Stress and too much work were the grievances of the teachers at the poor-performing school. As a result, students could not get individual attention.
To conclude, young adults are likely to develop bad habits in an environment where they are not given enough information about healthy practices and are surrounded by overworked teachers and badly behaving classmates.
However, the study was small and confined to a tiny area. Thus, it cannot give an idea of the educational environment as a whole.
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