In 2004 and 2005 the author and her colleagues conducted a survey among first-year students at Moscow State University of the Humanities titled "College Students' Attitudes Toward Health and a Healthy Way of Life," to determine students' perceptions and knowledge about a healthy way of life as well as habits fostering and promoting health. The results enabled them to detect paradoxes in the orientations and the behavior of that group of young people. Researchers Iu.R. Vishnevskii and V.T. Shapko are of the opinion that the study of the prevalence of paradoxical value orientations among young people makes it possible to examine the degree of centaurism in the behavior of young people. Their study of the problems of forming a healthy way of life among young people in school, through the prism of the conception of their paradoxical nature, has made it possible to determine these issues: "the paradox that has to do with the study of a healthy way of life; the paradox in the students' attitudes toward their health; contradictions in the pursuit of a healthy way of life; paradoxes in the transmission of information about a healthy way of life; and the paradox of level of knowledgeability." Mass media have more influence on their views than parents or religious organizations. (Contains 2 notes.)