System mechanisms of organization and management to form healthy lifestyle of young people

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Associate professor, Ph.D. E.S. Sadovnikov
Associate professor, Dr.Phil. V.N. Gulyaikhin
Volgograd State University, Volgograd              

Keywords: healthy lifestyle, self-care, system mechanisms, physical culture, organization and management.

Introduction.  The problem of formation of healthy lifestyle of young people is among the most relevant around the world. Many issues of organization and management of this process remain open. Social engineering as a science of principles, methods and technique of conscious stimulation of the social reality can help find the answers to these questions. It was G.P. Shchedrovitskiy who pointed out a paradoxical situation at the beginning of the twentieth century: when a modern engineer designs some technical system he simultaneously creates a corresponding model of socio-technical activity, which goes beyond the existing traditional technical and socio-cultural context [5]. A successful introduction of a new technique required changes to the system mechanisms of organization and management activity that had a significant impact on the development of social institutions such as schools, community organizations, family, forms of a healthy lifestyle of different groups of the population, etc. The current state of scientific and technological advance makes new demands to the development and organization of health and fitness activities for youth.

Materials and methods. During the study there was used the methodology and technique of social engineering by G.P. Shchedrovitsky containing the principles and methods of the activity approach, enabling us to represent the formation of a healthy lifestyle of youth as an integral, hierarchically structured and multi-leveled process. General scientific methods of abstraction, idealization, comparison, analysis and synthesis were used in the course of our research.

Research results. The usage of system mechanisms developed in the context of the theory of social engineering by G.P. Shchedrovitsky will result in more effective organization and management activities to promote healthy lifestyle among young people. The solution to this problem requires a synthesis of humanities, natural and social sciences. But we should not mechanically unite these spheres of knowledge since it provides no positive outcome. There is a need for a fundamentally different organizational approach, which promotes combining natural and artificial components of a healthy lifestyle within one "centaur-object". Such an object is developed through the use of two fundamentally different mechanisms: first, an artificially created component that does not have its own laws and nature, changing and evolving as a result of human health activities; secondly, a natural component that determines changes on the natural (physiological and psychological) level, without which it is essentially impossible to form a healthy lifestyle. In the process of "forging" of the mentioned centaur object the nature's material is the health of a young person, which varies according to the natural laws.

The primary source of a healthy lifestyle is not only the health of a young person as it is his organization of health and fitness activities, which enables him to regulate his lifestyle to match the loads and limitations based on the health principles. To improve the level of organization one must constantly monitor his health, make regular physical exercises, limit his self-indulgent desires, engage in health activities that require active physical work, muscle work and the work of the whole body, etc. [1]. Healthy lifestyle is an artificially-natural centaur object, that exists according to the laws of two types: on the one hand - following the artificial laws created by human activities, on the other - health and fitness activities are subject to natural (physiological and psychological) settings. There are certain relationships between the natural and man-made laws which reflect the relevance and irrelevance between the components of a centaur object. “Therefore, the problem is always about "catching" the corresponding material and use it in a certain functional place within the structure of activity” [5, p. 440]. Centaur objects are difficult to manage and in order to implement them successfully they require studying and using systemic mechanisms. The artificial part of a healthy lifestyle as a centaur object regulates the way of life of an individual, making him more organized, focused on taking care of his health. The main obstacle in the way of regulation-organization is to overcome the "pleasure principle", the dominant role of which in building a lifestyle is undeniable, and which determines the natural law of our centaur object. There is a mismatch between the main components of the object, which manifests itself in a repressive nature of its artificial part, which must be optimized in the course of formation of a healthy lifestyle of young people [3, p. 126].  

With the socio-technical system of a healthy lifestyle health and fitness activities of one person become the raw material for the management activities of another person. This system has two main levels: the activity of the subject (leader or organizer) is on the first level (the upper level), while on the other (the lower level) the object is health and fitness activities of another person or other people. Socio-technical system is constantly evolving, and so over time it evolves into a new state. For its efficient operation it is necessary to maintain interdependence between the two levels, which is formed from top to bottom. The subject of management of health and fitness activities should link his existence with the state of the control object. The natural and spontaneous development of the latter cannot suit the socio-technical system.

Organization of the process of formation of a healthy lifestyle of young people - is first of all the activities of an individual who manages health and fitness activities of young people, activities related to care of young people and their health. Organizational and managerial work in this area is centered on the connection between the artificial and the natural, it is aimed at finding the resultant force, which should, in fact, underlie health and fitness activities. The issue about the interrelation of the artificial and the natural remains unresolved. Nevertheless, it can be argued that a healthy lifestyle, as a natural-artificial centaur object, is always the result of a good organization of activities. The components of the centaur object interact in a certain way: they can modify and assimilate each other as well as enter into complex relationships and break them apart, reflect and render.

Acting as an external force, in order to improve the efficiency of his work, the organizer must first design the organization, but not the system of activities that promotes healthy lifestyle among young people. After all, "one can only design the organization itself and cannot design the system of activities, as any activity is deficient in relation to systems of activities, and such systems can only be controlled; in other words, it is as if we tear off the "upper" part of the activities from the "lower" part [5, p. 443]. The organization of effective management of a healthy lifestyle requires a complex system of scientific knowledge. First we need to make an objective assessment of the "lower" health and fitness activities of young people, make forecasts, identify the causes of its natural development and influential artificial factors. Then we should create adequate means in the form of organized elements of people's caring for themselves and their health, and after that develop a typological play on the "vortexes" of the possible development of the forms of a healthy lifestyle among young people. The system of organization and management activities should be designed not as a standalone object, but as a kind of "the highest" component in the system of social organized elements. To do this, one must first solve the technical problem of the technical implementation of health and fitness activities of young people in an organization or a social group, and then – solve the organizational problem as a number of measures to improve and develop activities to promote healthy lifestyles among young people. Managed by this process, the system of the "nesting dolls" type should be placed inside the control system, i.e., health and fitness activities, it must be "captured" and assimilated by the organization and management system. G.P. Shchedrovitsky even suggests that "... the control system is always of a predatory, parasitic nature. It should be understood clearly. There can be no other interrelations". [7, p. 144-145]. It seems that after all the other interrelations are quite possible and, moreover, one should seek to establish them. The control system has a parasitic nature only when it acts as a kind of external and alien to the existential interests of the human structure, trying to manipulate it. In the context of taking care of oneself and his health the management activity is not of a parasitical nature as it fully meets the fundamental natural needs of an individual. It should be of liberal-humanist nature. G.P. Shchedrovitsky shows authoritarian thinking, when he says that effective management requires a complete takeover of the controlled system. Moreover, he goes even further in this direction, trying to give reason to his thesis, stating that "... the educational system is necessarily of a predatory nature. In order to teach someone, I have to seize him. Moreover, I should handle him in such a way that he stopped moving himself any longer, and then start "moving" him myself. Otherwise, the training will be impossible" [7, p. 145]. Here the scientist contradicts to what he has stated earlier in his other works: control is possible only in relation to objects capable of self-movement [4]. Indeed, without moving himself a person becomes merely an object of someone else's will and ceases to be a person that can efficiently and willingly care of himself and his health.

In the course of organization and management activities new organizations are included into the source system in health and fitness activities of young people, i.e., the trajectory of its possible development changes in a certain way. It is very unlikely to carry out management of this process with a one-act directed action. The organizational work with young people requires a range of measures, which are distributed in a certain chronological order of management. This is a fairly complicated process. G.P. Shchedrovitsky considered it necessary to obtain 11 types of knowledge about it [5, p. 444]. If even one type of knowledge is lacking errors may be committed when choosing a management strategy. The essence of the work on the organization of a healthy lifestyle is that the organizer collects a certain amount of artificial and natural components of the health and fitness activities and establishes between them the necessary relationships and interrelations in the context of care of himself and his health. Thus, he creates a structure of the organization that is either beginning to live by its own laws and regulations, or becomes stillborn (in case of making fundamental errors in the design which are usually caused by the lack of information). After creating an operating structure the organizer recedes into the background, as hereinafter the established organization will operate either in accordance with the objectives set by him, or irrespective to them.

Without self-movement, self-organization and self-development of young people in the context of health and fitness activities, it is meaningless to set the task of managing, which is possible only within the framework of organization. The process of formation of a healthy lifestyle is managed due to the presence of special organizational relationships, which allow setting goals and tasks for the components of the centaur object. But in order to set them for young people they should give up their own goals and objectives, which is rather difficult for them to do (sometimes even impossible). Therefore, the organizer has to show all of his professional skills and talents. After all, young people would rarely give up their strategic goals (or give them up with great reservations and temporarily). We need to convincingly persuade them that a healthy lifestyle is a necessary factor for success in life.

Any kind of management objectively assumes relationships of submission and proper subordination. The success of the organization and management activities depends on the efficient use of predictive methods that allow modeling the process of health and fitness activities of young people. It is not possible to effectively manage, without the forecast of development of the situation and without any knowledge of the alleged future state. This is necessary to change the natural trajectory of spontaneous development for the artificial and controlled one. The leader must have a plan and a program of his impact on the trajectory of the formation of healthy lifestyle. He needs a procedural scheme of control over the activity in which the subjects are the organizers and the young people themselves.

Conclusion. The functioning of the system mechanisms of organization and management activities to promote healthy lifestyle among young people has a number of features and peculiarities. These should include the need to consider the complexity of the natural-artificial nature of a centaur object, a two-tier management and organization structure, its humanistic manner, the necessity of self-movement and self-organization, polyactivity, hierarchy and complexity of the organization. The artificial part of a healthy lifestyle as a centaur object regulates the lifestyle of an individual, making him more organized, focused on taking care of his health. The main obstacle in the way of the regulation-organization is overcoming the "pleasure principle", the dominant role of which in building a person's lifestyle is undeniable, and that determines the natural law of our centaur object. There is a mismatch between the main components of the object, which manifests itself in a repressive nature of its artificial part that needs to be constantly optimized in the process of formation of a healthy lifestyle of young people.

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Corresponding author: evgeniysadov@mail.ru