Competitiveness is an important factor among social variables influencing youth’s health related behaviors, however the relationship between competitiveness and health behaviors is a less investigated field of research. In addition, cultural background may lead to differences in dimensions and structure of competitiveness, but only few researchers have examined this relationship thus far. Our data contained three subsamples. The first wave of data were collected in 2005, in the Southern Plain Region of Hungary, Békés and Csongrád counties. 548 questionnaires were analyzed (age range: 14-21 years; M= 16.3 years; S.D. 1.3 years; response rate: 91.3%; 42% girls). The second one was collected in 2009, in the same region, from Szeged. 501 questionnaires were analyzed (age range: 19-27 years; M=21.3 years; S.D. 1.6 years; response rate: 98,2%; 57.5% girls). Finally, the third subsample was collected in 2010 from Novi Sad, Subotica and B. Topola. 200 questionnaires were analyzed (age range: 19-34 years; M=22.67 years; S.D. 2.0 years, response rate: 95,2%; 43.5% girls). Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data. Questionnaires included items on sociodemographics, competitiveness and health behaviors. Factor analysis provided three factor solution with good reliability values, but different factor loadings on the subsamples. „Enjoyment of competition” factor was nearly the same in all subsamples, but the other factors were varied. Among Hungarian youth „Avoidance of social conflict” and „Fear of competition” were separate factors, while among students from Serbia making difference between arguements and competition was a more important issue. Avoidance of arguements was correlated with negative emotion (dread, unpleasant) while avoidance of competition was not. We also found differences in the relationships between competitiveness factors and health behaviors. Our study pointed out that health promotion programs should take cultural background into account
