Diet-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are rapidly increasing in burden on the Australian population. This trend is driven by changes in dietary patterns towards nutrient-poor and processed foods.

Australia has implemented a variety of food labelling standards to help inform and empower consumers to make healthier dietary choices. 

A key part of this is the Health Star Rating (HSR), a voluntary front-of-pack labelling system that rates the nutritional profile of packaged foods on a scale from ½ a star to 5 stars. It is designed to help consumers make easy and quick comparisons between similar types of food, and has been shown to result in healthier product selection. 

However, the HSR system has faced strong opposition and a slow uptake from the food industry, with only 32% of products in Australia displaying the HSR in 2024, almost 10 years after it was introduced. This falls well short of the government’s own targets for 70% of products to display an HSR by 2025. 

In addition, food brands often choose to display the HSR on higher-scoring healthy products, while excluding lower-scoring products, turning the HSR into a marketing tool, rather than its intended public health purpose.  

We commend the food ministers for recognising this disparity and share their disappointment in the low voluntary uptake of the HSR. We are encouraged by their recent decision to commence investigation into the process for mandating the HSR system.

The Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA), the peak representative body for Australia’s 18,000 medical students, calls for the government to mandate the HSR system as soon as feasible. This call is supported by other notable public health organisations, including the Public Health Association, the AMA, Dietitians Australia, Cancer Council, and The Heart Foundation. 

We further call for the government to continue to strengthen the HSR system to effectively assist consumers in making healthier dietary choices to improve population diets. This includes running educational campaigns to inform consumers about what the HSR represents, and refining the algorithm to consider including the harmful effects of ultra-processed ingredients in addition to the individual nutrients.

“Mandating the Health Star Rating System is a key step in empowering time-poor customers to be able to make healthier product choices for themselves and their families,” says AMSA Healthy Communities.