Strengthening the use of law to improve healthy eating and heart health in Australia

Associate Professor Alexandra Jones, University of New South Wales

Future Leader Fellowship

Years funded: 2026 - 2030

Poor diets are responsible for 1 of every 5 deaths worldwide, most of which are cardiovascular disease deaths. Law is a powerful tool to improve population health equitably, yet despite Australia's global leadership in using legislation in areas like tobacco control, law remains underused as a tool to promote healthier diets.

My pioneering program of work in food governance is investigating the crucial role of law in creating a healthier food supply for all Australians. My program has definitively shown that existing governmental initiatives have good intentions but have failed to achieve health impact in their voluntary form. Globally, there has been increasing interest from the World Health Organization and governments across the political spectrum in adopting mandatory measures like sugar taxes and warning labels. Now is the time to harness the potential health benefits of a shift to mandatory legislation in Australia.

This Future Leader Fellowship will generate new evidence to support stronger regulation in two key policy areas:

1. Nutrition labelling, by accelerating mandating of the Health Star Rating label so that it appears on the front of all packaged foods. I will investigate the most effective way to transition the voluntary policy into existing food standards, assess how the label’s underlying scoring system should be updated to reflect evolving nutrition science, and pilot a co-designed tool with governments to enforce compliance with a newly mandatory label.

2. Reducing salt and sugar in packaged foods, by converting failed attempts by the Healthy Food Partnership to drive reformulation voluntarily into a regulatory proposal establishing maximum limits for salt and sugar content in key food products (e.g. bread, sugary drinks). I will draw upon recent innovation in countries like South Africa and Indonesia to demonstrate the legal and technical feasibility of implementing a similar mandatory approach in Australia.

This work will be achieved by combining quantitative insights from the George Institute’s FoodSwitch dataset of >100,000 foods with legal and policy analysis to generate evidence-informed recommendations for regulatory reform. I will use this evidence to drive policy impact by harnessing my existing relationships with policymakers on government food policy committees, my track record of coordinated advocacy with other public health and consumer groups, and my strengths in using media to communicate effectively with the public on proposed solutions. By strengthening laws to increase the healthiness of food supply, this work will improve nutrition and heart health for millions of Australians.