Health is wealth for students
According to a recent survey done across South Africa and Namibia, students are spending their money more on health and fitness than anything else.
The survey was conducted via email by a group of Economics students at the University of Namibia in March. It involved 50 students from four different universities (10 students from each institution), namely: The University of the Free State (UFS), The University of Namibia (UNAM), Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST), Rhodes University (Rhodes) and The University of Cape Town (UCT).
From a list of activities, 46% of the students chose gyming as an activity they take part in to quell boredom. 32% chose playing sport, 22% chose reading while the other 0.1% chose “spontaneous activities” as a means to use up time.
Out of these figures, 25 students were girls and the other 25 boys with 10 students each being a from a year group ranging from year one to five.
Dominique Namene, head of the team, said the research aimed to explore how students are spending free time, what they’re buying, and how they’re shopping.
“The economy fluctuates at weird rates so we wanted to see how students are reacting to that and figure out why.” She added.
The survey further revealed that 78% of the students spend a portion of their monthly allowance on gym membership fees or investing in the sports they play. These students also spend more money on food than the other students.
“We saw that those who gym and play sports tend to budget for an extra meal more than the those that do not gym or play sports. We, however, noted that students who play sport and make use of the gym also tend to save more money than the others who do not,” she said.
In the summary of the findings, we saw that students who keep fit always maintain their fitness by spending less money on unnecessary food or drinking.
Furthermore, of the 78%, 24 students had fruits and vegetables as a necessity on their grocery list. The other 15 have water and nutritious supplements on their list of grocery priorities.
A student at the University of the Free State, Pameni Shikwambi, who participated in the survey said he was shocked at how healthy students are living of late.
“Yes, we drink almost every weekend but we are functioning alcoholics. I’ve never seen a group of people so focused and determined to stay fit and live a healthy lifestyle while still balancing other toxic activities on the side. Gyming is important because it helps keep a balance and I think we’re quite blessed to be able to do both,” he said.
Shikwambi also noted how fruits and vegetables are becoming a rare commodity these days in the supermarkets as there is a high demand for them.
“I do most of my shopping here at Bloemgate, I know many students shop there so I can pick up on student trends by seeing what is left in the store. The other day I noticed less oranges and potatoes than Coca-Cola and we aren’t even in winter yet,” he said.
Namene said that the reason they conducted their survey across such a wide spectrum was also to see whether social media influences student spending. The 50 students chosen follow at least the same 5 accounts on Instagram and 5 on Twitter.
“There are so many factors that influence our economy and its spending patterns. Students have this culture of seeing from each other and copying. Clearly off late, somebody has been copying somebody at the supermarkets and in the gym,” she highlighted.
