Food Policy and Public Health Assignment 2022

Running head: FOOD POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
FOOD POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
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Author Note

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FOOD POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
One of the widely deployed tool, the front of pack nutrition labels are famous in the
public good marketing in Australia and New Zealand. This essay highlights the topic of the front
of packing nutrition with the case of the health rating system (HRS) in New Zealand and
Australia (Healthstarrating.gov.au. 2019). The thesis statement of the essay argues with the
competing worldviews and scientific uncertainties for the causes and the solutions of the policy
towards the dietary risk factors and effective implementation. The essay used news articles for
thorough analysis indicating the development and influence of the Health Star Rating System
(HSR) over the dietary risk factors in Australia.
1. Describe FOPNL as a policy action
The FOPL or the Front of Package labels are one of the efficient tools that are used for the
increase of the awareness of customer regarding the nutritional quality of food and
encouragement of healthier choices. The main aim of FOPL is to facilitate the understanding of
the consumer regarding the nutrition quality of food across the social and cultural contexts
(Maganja et al. 2019). FOPL might fit into a comprehensive food policy of the type of dietary
and food healthiness by providing information to the consumers regarding healthier food choices
within the nutrition labels and encourage the industry for the reformulation of their products
towards a much healthier option.
In the context of the Healthy Food Partnership that involves the public health organizations, the
government and the food industry, it is believed that it is very much necessary for this
arrangement of the governance to achieve the goal of the partnership that is an improvement of
nutritional status and health of the Australians and New Zealanders (Jones, Shahid and Neal
2018). This is necessary for the partnership to achieve its goal for the sake of public health in
Australia. According to the reports, the dietary factors like saturated fats, a high proportion of

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FOOD POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
salts, consumption of artificial sugar followed by the inadequate consumption of vegetables and
fruits are some of the leading cause of the burden of disease in Australia resulting to premature
death and disability within the country.
2. Examine the HSR system as a policy action to promote healthy food selection
i)
The star rating is calculated by assigning the baseline points for the saturated fat, energy, content
of sodium and total sugar per 100gm followed up by awarding of the modifying points for the
FVNL (Fruit, Vegetables, Nuts and Legume Content), fiber and protein. This is then calculated
based on an overall score by the subtraction of the modifying points from the points in the
baseline (Healthstarrating.gov.au. 2019). The calculation by nutrient profiling states that lower
score reflects more nutritious content in the food product. In the case of category 1, which is the
beverages, the product which scored <1 are eligible for the health claim display. For category 2
that is food, products scoring <4 are eligible while for category 3 that is oil, products scoring <28
are eligible
a) Nutrient profiling is the science related to the ranking and the classification of the foods on the
basis of their nutrient composition. The health star rating of the food by the nutrient profiling is
performed by using “Guide towards the Health Star Rating Calculator” which is endorsed by the
government of Australia.
Apart from the use of nutrient profiling in FOPNL, it is widely being used as part of the number
of applications over the nutrition policy (Mhurchu, Eyles and Choi 2017). The nutrient profile
models are furthermore used for the evaluation of the nutritional food quality within the

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FOOD POLICY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
nutrition-related policies by the utilization of the algorithms that take in consideration of the
amounts of the nutrients in the product for characterizing the healthfulness degree of it by scores.
b) Within the Health Star Rating, the nutrients that are considered is divided into risk nutrients
and positive nutrients. These nutrients are scored and used to rate individual foods within the
Health Star Rating on the basis of their nutritional values. The positive set of nutrients includes
dietary fibers, calcium, protein, minerals or cereal vitamins (Lawrence, Dickie and Woods
2018). The risk nutrients contain sodium or salt, unprocessed sugars, saturated fats which are
linked to chronic disease and obesity. The score of the nutrients of the food by the Health Star
Rating is calculated by 5 essential steps.
1st – identification of the category of the food
2nd – calculation of the Health Star Rating baseline points (On the basis of table from Appendix
II)
3rd – Calculation of the final score = (Baseline points – Modifying points)
Final HSR Score = Baseline points - (V points) – (P points ) – (F points)
4th – Assigning the HSR category (As per Appendix III)