'What does not kill you makes you stronger'. Health, health behaviour and interest in health promotion of Austrian conscripts

摘要

Background. Men tend to be less health-conscious than women.This leads to a lower utilization of medical, psychosocial, and also health-promoting interventions.To address this "hard-to-reach" target group, male settings such as the military must be considered for the implementation of health promotion. Methods. Using a questionnaire, the health-status, health-behaviour (smoking, binge-drinking, nutrition) and interest in health-promotion of 79 male conscripts of a Carin-thian company were measured. Results. The soldiers rate their health predominately in a positive way.They are mainly non-smokers (60.8 %), consume too little fruits and vegetables, but too much meat-products. 87 % of the conscripts reported at least one episode of binge-drinking within the last month.The soldiers showed a high interest in health-promotion, only six respondents didn't want to utilize such measures.Discussion. The results support the implementation of health-promotion in the Austrian Armed Forces, the military seems to be a promising setting to reach young men.