Social Relations to Food, The Meaning of the Farmers’ Market and Healthy Lifestyle: The Case of Czechia and Ukraine

Abstract

Very few studies have observed how society is defined around and within meaningful categories. They are mainly oriented on lifestyle value. This research takes into account this existing gap in the literature and this study aims to explore the relationship between the cultural meaning of society and the social meaning of a healthy lifestyle. Although empirical studies found that the farmers market had a social meaning for healthy lifestyles, two research hypotheses were formulated based on the symbolic character of a healthy lifestyle. Social relations with food explain the meaning of a healthy lifestyle, and the meaning of the farmers’ market explains the meaning of a healthy lifestyle within the food market. A nine-item scale related to the social meaning of eating was used. The data was collected in Czechia and Ukraine. The sample was used for the proposed confirmatory factor model based on the factor score of dimensions related to the desired consequences and the concept of purchase by the farmer of the adapted lifestyle concept. The result of the analysis indicates that the social relationship with food is the main characteristic of social meaning.