Lifestyles and Sports of Teenagers. A Case Study in Italy

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued over the past decade, an alarm on a number of risk factors that can influence negatively the life of a man: a sedentary lifestyle, improper eating habits, as well as the use of smoking, drugs and alcohol not only affect adults, but in an even more significant and worrying about young people. Hence, it is necessary to intervene in order to improve people's health by changing their lifestyles. In this regard, the ORSA (Regional Observatory sports Abruzzo) on behalf of CONI Abruzzo has conducted research in 2012 involving nearly 10,000 high school students (equivalent to 20% of the student population of the region) distribution by type of school attended, gender, age, province of residence, to ensure the representativeness of the sample. The survey examined by administering a semi-structured questionnaire and the construction of four focus groups (one in each province of the region), with the aim to investigate lifestyles, eating habits and exercise habits, with particular attention to the profiles of obese and severely underweight teenagers, which together account for almost one third of the 1175 youth population. This is a first step in the knowledge base on which to take action to raise awareness and prevention with the help of all the Federations of the cones. The results have been demonstrated fully in line with the national data (Istat 2010) and made it possible to provide a detailed and multifaceted condition and habits of young Abruzzo