ArticlePublic health nutrition2025
Concordance of Australian state and territory government guidelines for classifying the healthiness of foods in public settings.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- 'We all need to be on the same page': sustainment of healthy food retail practices in Australian public settings.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Restricting outdoor advertising of unhealthy food: can Australia's food category-based classification system be applied consistently?Health promotion international · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate the concordance between Australian government guidelines for classifying the healthiness of foods across various public settings.
designCommonly available products in Australian food service settings across eight food categories were classified according to each of the seventeen Australian state and territory food classification guidelines applying to public schools, workplaces and healthcare settings. Product nutrition information was retrieved from online sources. The level of concordance between each pair of guidelines was determined by the proportion of products rated at the same level of healthiness.
settingAustralia.
participantsNo human participants.
resultsApproximately half (56 %) of the 967 food and drink products assessed were classified as the same level of healthiness across all fifteen 'traffic light'-based systems. Within each setting type (e.g. schools), pairwise concordance in product classifications between guidelines ranged from 74 % to 100 %. 'Vegetables' (100 %) and 'sweet snacks and desserts' (78 %) had the highest concordance across guidelines, while 'cold ready-to-eat foods' (0 %) and 'savoury snacks' (23 %) had the lowest concordance. In addition to differences in classification criteria, discrepancies between guidelines arose from different approaches to grouping of products. The largest proportion of discrepancies (58 %) were attributed to whether products were classified as 'Red' (least healthy) or 'Amber' (moderately healthy).
conclusionsThe results indicate only moderate concordance between all guidelines. National coordination to create evidence-based consistency between guidelines would help provide clarity for food businesses, which are often national, on how to better support community health through product development and reformulation.
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