Are Health Star Ratings Useful?
What are Health Star Ratings?
The Health Star Rating (HSR) system in Australia is a front of packet tool to help understand the nutritional profile of a certain food. It was first introduced in 2014 and it assigns a star rating to packaged foods based on their nutritional quality. These range from 0.5HSR to 5HSR; the more stars, the healthier the food choice.
Why do we need it?
Aussies waistlines are growing. Our environment and food choices are a large part of that. In theory if we can modify health behaviours and industry through policy changes, there is the potential that we are better informed on food choices and that in turn impacts our health. Hopefully if more people can understand how to read a food label as well as the HSR system, food education and choices can improve.
Has it worked so far?
Firstly, categorising food on a health scale is super difficult. After working on the NSW Healthy Canteen Strategy with NSW Health for the past two years, it's tough to draw a line in the sand on food when there are so many factors and influencers. No system is perfect but the goal is to inform consumers and create healthy food choices off the back of it.
The issue at this point with HSR is that it is still a voluntary system. Currently only 42% of brands choose to display the HSR on their front of packet. When you further break that down, only 14% of products with a 1HSR displayed it, whereas 50% of those which has a 5HSR display it on their packets. Brands are using this to their advantage (eg Kelloggs cereal scores a HSR5 which is great, it is displayed on those cereals. Kelloggs LCM bars on the other hand have a 0.5HSR and it is not displayed on that packet.
With the way HSR score in the algorithm, most discretionary scored low and most core foods scored high. That’s a good start. The problem lies in the middle where some everyday foods have a low HSR or some discretionary foods are getting a higher HSR. This is an area being looked at further to help stop that. One example of this is the loophole that Milo has been under in the old HSR system. This product use to have a 4.5HSR as it was assumed it was being consumed with skim milk (which lifted it’s score). Since the review, this will no longer happen for products like this so for something like Milo, it should drop to a 1.5HSR.
There is some evidence of companies reformulating their products to achieve higher Health Star Ratings so the more weight a system like this has, the more likely it is to change how processed our food industry is. The HSR system is performing “ok” but it’s not perfect. It’ll be around for another few years at least so you may as well get to understand it. If the current voluntary system doesn’t work, there is discussion it may become mandatory for food packaging. Watch this space.
