The Pros And Cons Of The Health Star Rating System

The Health Star Rating system is like a bad Christmas present, on the outside it looks like it will benefit you greatly and bring you joy and happiness, however once you unpack it and look at it in further detail you realise how utterly wrong you were and wonder why you had so much faith in it that it would completely change your life.

The Health Star Rating system is an exceptional initiative to assist consumers in making better, more informed decisions about eating healthier food products. However the system is extremely flawed in the sense that it doesn’t cover the fundamental aspects it needs to function properly. Its standards for the “health factor” of products rated using their system are broken, it is misleading and it isn’t even
One of these reasons is simply because the ratings of many food products are far from accurate and do not reflect upon the true ‘health factor’ of the item. For example, “straight milk” is rated four stars, while UP & GO Liquid Breakfast, with all of its added sugars and unnecessary ingredients receives four and a half stars. Furthermore, some brands of fresh smoked salmon receive only two stars, and all the while even some junk foods such as a brand of strawberry liquorice twists which are almost one third of their weight in sugar, achieve a rating of two and a half stars. This is horrifying, especially because this packet of lollies on the health star rating system is one whole star ‘healthier’ than a tub of all-natural Greek yogurt! The reason why some of these unusual results occur in the health star rating system is because of the way it assigns weightings to certain types of nutrients. It turns out that natural unsweetened yogurts can receive a lower score than sugary fruit juices because the fat content of the yogurt is taxed heavier than the sugar in the juice, which is also given extra points for fruit content. For the system to actually have a positive impact, it needs to be changed so that there is a much greater penalty on sugar as well as
Although it should be obvious to most people that a healthy diet is one without foods that are filled with endless amounts of unwanted sugar, added chemicals and preservatives. However, most people don’t take this into consideration or never think to check the back of the label of most of the products they are buying for themselves or their children to check if it is filled with sugar or unnecessary additives. Instead these people look at signs on the front of the packaging such as the health star rating system which can even motivate them to buy certain products because they are ‘healthy’. This can be very misleading, especially due to the inaccuracy of the calculated ‘health factor’ rating of food products under the Health Star Rating system. This inaccuracy is a major flaw of the system because it means that certain food products such as Nutri-Grain and UP & GO are being advertised as ‘healthy’ and obviously aren’t, while natural fresh smoked salmon is treated the way these products should be with only a two star