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                    Healthy Choices

                    Green outline of an apple.
                    Our aim is simple. We want to help people eat healthier food.

                    ​​​​​​​​​​City of Melbourne is dedicated to ensuring people always have access to healthy food and have the knowledge and capability to make the healthiest choice.

                    That’s why we’ve developed Healthy Choices: a program to help food providers improve their menus, offer more heathy options and enable consumers to make better food choices.

                    Healthy Choices is based on the state government’s Healthy choices: food and drink classification guide, which assesses a food’s ingredients list to determine its overall nutritional value.

                    How is food classified?

                    Food is classified based on the state government’s healthy choices food and drink classification guide.

                    Food assessed as Healthy Choices are marked with the apple icon.

                    These foods are healthy choices because they:

                    • are often high in nutrients and fibre
                    • are low in saturated fat and/or sugar and/or salt
                    • help to avoid an excess kilojoule intake.

                    The majority of your daily food intake should comprise these foods. 

                    The Healthy Choices icon is an easily recognisable symbol that represents healthy, nutritious food. Look for the apple icon indicating Healthy Choices. 

                    Where can you find Healthy Choices?

                    ​Keep an eye out for the apple icon at major events and facilities across the City of Melbourne. You can find healthy choices at:

                    • Moomba
                    • Melbourne Fashion Week
                    • Melbourne Awards
                    • North Melbourne Recreation Centre
                    • Melbourne City Baths
                    • Kensington Recreation Centre
                    • Carlton Baths
                    • Riverslide Skate Park.

                    Where did Healthy Choices come from?

                    Latest research tells us that much of the world’s population is inadequately nourished and more than 820 million people consume low quality diets that cause micronutrient deficiencies and contribute to diet-related obesity and diet-related non communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

                    The City of Melbourne food policy – Food City – states our commitment to ensuring that we have a food system that is secure, healthy, sustainable, thriving and socially inclusive.

                    This includes working with partners and our community to improve access to healthy and nutritious food, and enabling people to make food choices that enhance their health and wellbeing. Illustration of traffice lights with faces, symbolising red, amber and green eating choices.

                    The Healthy Choices apple icon has been designed as an easily recognisable symbol that represents healthy, nutritious food. Healthy Choices has been adopted as City of Melbourne’s primary healthy eating program.

                    The apple icon has replaced the colourful characters and branding of the previous Green Light Eat Right Program which began in 2009 with the help of Nutrition Australia. While these colourful characters leant themselves to family-friendly environments such as rec facilities, the branding has been adapted to suit a broader range of events and settings. 

                    Contact us

                    Contact name
                    Health and Wellbeing Team
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