Most packaged products carry a Nutrition Information Panel. A Nutrition Information Panel provides detailed information about the contents of the food, but the Health Star Rating provides a way to quickly compare similar packaged foods and make healthier choices.
Most Australians and New Zealanders do not eat the recommended serves of fruit and vegetables, grains, meat and alternatives, and dairy products and alternatives each day.
Having low nutrition and consuming excessive amounts of food significantly contributes to poor health and premature deaths. Poor diet is third only to overweight and obesity and tobacco use for leading risk factors contributing to disease burden.
For good health , choose foods that are:
- higher in positive nutrients (such as vitamins and minerals, protein and dietary fibre)
- lower in risk nutrients that are linked to obesity and diet-related chronic diseases (such as saturated fat, sodium, sugars and energy).
Maintaining a healthy weight, increasing the consumption of beneficial nutrients and reducing the consumption of risk nutrients is important for everyone. This can help you live longer and reduce your chances of developing chronic diseases, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. What we eat and drink is a large determinant of our health.
The Australian National Preventive Health Strategy outlines the long-term approach to preventive health in Australia. It includes measurable targets to increase vegetable intake and reduce consumption of discretionary foods, sugar and sodium. One of the key objectives of the Strategy is to help people make food choices based on the Health Star Rating.
In New Zealand, poor diets were the second leading cause of health loss in 2017, accounting for 8.6% of health loss or 100,128 disability adjusted life years (Ministry of Health, 2020).
In New Zealand, the Government Policy Statement on Health 2024-2027 (Minister of Health, 2024) calls for accelerated action for non-communicable disease, to be achieved in part through addressing modifiable risk factors including poor nutrition. The New Zealand Health Strategy (Minister of Health, 2023) has a focus on prevention and providing better access to healthy food and nutrition.
