Investigating Nutrient Profiling And Health

Importance of Health Star System to the health

Discuss about the Investigating Nutrient Profiling and Health.

In Australia, the government and private institutes provide health care. The key elements are managed by the national government by making sure that public hospital operates. They also ensure that policies which are of benefit to the citizens are implemented (Hmlin and McNeill, 2016).

The health Star Rating system is a new system developed to assist the consumer determine the level of nutrients in packed products. The Health Star system allows consumers to compare the level of nutrients of different food in the same category of processed and packed foods quickly. For example, when a customer wants to shop for breakfast, the nutritional profile of the cereals can be easily compared, or the nutrition value of a muesli from the other. The system is easy to understand and use since the package which is healthier has more stars than the one with low nutrient content (Wellard, et al, 2016).

The principal objective of the Health Star Rating system is to direct consumers on the best choice of food to use and also to develop the confidence of the consumer in the type of food they eat by checking on the product they buy rather than guessing.

The campaign of the Health Star Rating system implementation is supported through activities designed to encourage industries and by informing consumers through various activities designed (Lawrence and Pollard, 2015).

The Health Star Rating system is built on 6 dissimilar food types. It allows consumers to check and compare the overall nutrient outline of product in the same group of a process and packed goods. The calculation for each product and each food category do not take into account the ingredients and preservative used, and the consumer is advised to check on the ingredient for further rating (Hoffmann, et al., 2016).

 The HRS will help to boost competition among the products. This force companies to produce quality food with good nutrients so as to remain relevant in the industry through competition. A good number of Australians use packed food, and they should be guided to take quality and of good nutritional value. However, a higher star rating is not sufficient to assume that given food has all the quality needed for balance diet and the method of production is not also considered.

The tool is designed to help the user make a healthier choice, and to mind, on the type of food, they want to eat. Many times, people go shopping not knowing which type of food contains the nutrient they want and end up taking the wrong food. Through the use of HSR, the number of patients visiting hospital due to lack of particular nutrient will reduce because they will be advice on what to eat and at what ratio (Riley, et al., 2016).

How the policy would be implemented

Another advantage of The Health Rating system is that it provide the better understanding of the importance of health diet. People engaging in different activities need to take the different type of food like there is a specific nutrient recommended for infants, nutrients for lactating mothers, bodybuilders, and athletes. Through The Health Rating System, people will be guided on what they want and at what amount they should take (Mhurchu, et al., 2016).

 To live longer, people need to maintain weight and regularly doing practice. This will help to increase mental and physical health hence getting more life. In Australia, an annual event is organized to advise people on how they can eat a proper diet and to maintain the healthy weight. For a person to maintain a healthy weight, the energy used for daily activities must be balanced by the energy consumed. The researched done in Australia shows that many people do not get their balance right and this is due to too many kilojoules consumed and less physical activities done (Hieke & Harris, 2016).

This poor diet and overweight in Australia have resulted to some of the diseases which can be prevented if good measures are taken to the cardiovascular disease, some cancer, and type 2 diabetes. This can be prevented when The Health Star Rating is used to avoid guesswork out of shopping for the processed and packed food.  The system provides the consumers with an easy read label on the front of the package citing the overall nutrition packing of the food. This helps the consumers to select the healthier product in the category of similar foods since the healthier product has more stars compared to the other (Mhurchu, et al., 2016).

The Health Star Rating of each product is determined by the amount of saturated fat, sodium, and sugar it contains per 100g or 100ml as well as the amount of energy. Product may be rated higher depending on the quality of positive ingredients such as fiber, vegetables, fruits, and proteins they contain (Hieke & Harris, 2016).

For the implementation to be successful, the government which the key stakeholder in implementation of this policy is looking forward to work with the following groups to ensure that industries use the policy: the groups include:

Health Star Rating Advisory Committee implements the Health Star Rating System (Watson, et al., 2014). The committee have come up with new strategies to ensure that the system is applied and functional in Australia first they recommended a research to be done so as to view the opinion of citizen regarding the product. This policy is to be implemented for 5 years with the targeted group being the Australian companies.

Research has been done to determine how consumer react on the Health Star system compared to the other nutrition labels. In ten focus group, the children above 10 years and adults were shown products containing the current label used in the country, the Daily intake Guide, the system used in the UK Multiple Traffic Light and the recent developed The Health Star Rating. The participant shared their views about the nutritional level and how they could use them while shopping (Brennan, 2015).

Most of the participant chose on the Health Star Rating as the best of the three labels. The reason why the children and adults chose on the policy is that they understood how the system worked even if they had not seen it and said that they were to use it in the future to help them select food.

This study was done so as to get the view of the children and adult before the policy is implemented so that it can be accepted smoothly after implementation. The researchers including children in the research are critical because they influence the purchasing habit of their parents and they have greater disposal income (Watson, et al., 2014).

The second method to implement the strategy is through formation of committee which will ensure that the formation is successful. Some of the committees to be formed are:

This committee is proposed to ensure that the implementation of the policy is successful. This is due to the large number of the obese and overweight children in the country. The main function of the committee is to ensure that the implementation is successful by 2019. (Brennan, 2015).

For the success of implementation of the system, the forum agreed that Food Regulation Committee absorbs the work of Steering Committee. The steering committee is keen on ensuring that the process is applied in industries, health centers through the front of pack labeling process. This process is to be done by the FRSC and ensure that the policy is successful now that it had been preferred by many consumers (Senior, 2015).

Health Star Rating Advisory Committee (HSRAC)

This committee is formed to oversee the implementation of Health Star Rating and evaluating its procedures. This includes any possible anomalies that may be identified in the system. Its members are from the public, industries, and the government of Australia and the Government of New Zealand. The government is also determined to work with the stakeholders to ensure that the system is implemented (Senior, 2015).

Finally legislation will be used by the government to ensure that companies implement the strategy and customers receive quality food. This will enable the policy to be successful since those products without Health Star rating will not be allowed in the market.

References

Brennan, M. (2015). Is the Health Star Rating System a Thin Response to a Fat Problem: An Examination of the Constitutionality of a Mandatory Front Package Labelling System. U. Notre Dame Austl. L. Rev., 17, 86.

Hamlin, R., & McNeill, L. (2016). Does the Australasian “Health Star Rating” Front of Pack Nutritional Label System Work?. Nutrients, 8(6), 327.

Hieke, S., & Harris, J. L. (2016). Nutrition information and front-of-pack labelling: issues in effectiveness. Public Health Nutrition, 19(12), 2103-2105.

Hoffmann, K., Hoffmann, K., De Gelder, R., Hu, Y., Mackenbach, J. P., & van Lenthe, F. J. (2016). 9. E. Oral presentations: Food and nutrition policy. European Journal of Public Health, 26, 1.

Lawrence, M., & Pollard, C. (2015). A year on, Australia’s health star food-rating system is showing cracks. The Conversation, 1-1.

Mhurchu, C. N., Brown, R., Jiang, Y., Eyles, H., Dunford, E., & Neal, B. (2016). Nutrient profile of 23 596 packaged supermarket foods and non-alcoholic beverages in Australia and New Zealand. Public health nutrition, 19(03), 401-408.

Riley, M. D., Bowen, J., Krause, D., Jones, D., & Stonehouse, W. (2016). A survey of consumer attitude towards nutrition and health statements on food labels in South Australia. Functional Foods in Health and Disease, 6(12), 809-821.

Senior, N. (2015). The health star rating system. Nutridate, 26(1), 5.

Watson, W. L., Kelly, B., Hector, D., Hughes, C., King, L., Crawford, J., … & Chapman, K. (2014). Can front-of-pack labelling schemes guide healthier food choices? Australian shoppers’ responses to seven labelling formats. Appetite, 72, 90-97.

Wellard, L., Hughes, C., & Watson, W. L. (2016). Investigating nutrient profiling and Health Star Ratings on core dairy products in Australia. Public health nutrition, 1-6.