Sometimes the nanny state works. Take the food health-star rating system. The premise is simple: to indicate the health value of food products on packaging with a star-rating system that is easy for consumers to understand.

The system’s brief moment in the political spotlight occurred in February 2014 after the then-assistant health minister, Fiona Nash, ordered the website to be taken down a day after its launch, despite approval from Coag. Soon after, Nash’s chief of staff, Alastair Furnival, resigned when his links to the junk food industry were raised as a potential conflict of interest.

Now, 10 months into the scheme, it has emerged that global food giants Nestle and Kellogg’s have both adjusted the ingredients in their products to get a better health-star rating.

Fairfax reported on Wednesday that Nestle had spent $7m on reducing the salt, sugar and fat content in Uncle Toby’s muesli bars and that Kellogg’s had reformulated its popular Nutri-Grain breakfast cereal to make it more nutritious. That is a terrific outcome for a scheme that simply tells the truth to consumers.

ABC consumer rights comedy show the Checkout has done a great job exposing marketers’ meaningless health claims – buzzwords on the front of the pack, “superfood” ingredients and package design to make products seem healthier than they are.

So the nanny-state mandated stars printed on the front of packets actually compete with the product’s own marketing. Who loses? If anyone, it’s not the consumers.

We know Australia has an obesity problem. We have the second highest rate of obesity growth in the world. Among women it’s the highest. The health and economic implications of an increasingly overweight population are huge. We also know obesity leads to chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular and kidney ailments, and some cancers, which are expensive to manage and treat.

A 2005 study from the National Health and Medical Research Council quantified this: $35.6bn in direct costs to the economy and $21bn in indirect costs.

What is the cause of this growing epidemic? Experts say it’s pretty simple: a westernised diet high in sugary drinks and snacks, and heavy marketing by the food industry. Increased sedentary behaviour also has an impact.

It’s not simply down to people choosing to eat poorly and getting fat. The marketing, availability and price of unhealthy food all influence individual decisions about what to eat and when to eat it. Junk food companies sponsoring kids’ sports out of the goodness of their hearts? What a lovely thought.

Faced with the huge cost of preventable disease, doesn’t the government have an obligation to provide a counterpoint to the gargantuan marketing budgets of multinational food companies?

The health-star rating system shows governments can intervene without infringing on an individual’s right to choose. Consumers end up with information about their food, to which they have always been entitled. Companies have an incentive to improve their products. And you can choose to eat food with a one-star rating if you want, but at least you will know it’s unhealthy.

This goes beyond ingredients; the NSW Cancer Council has called on cafes to offer smaller sizes and healthier options in their breakfast drinks and snacks menu after a survey found people might be consuming their entire recommended daily sugar or saturated fat intake during their morning coffee break.

The survey of 564 menu items from Gloria Jeans, Coffee Club, McCafé, Muffin Break and Michel’s Patisserie found that 54% of cold beverages – including iced coffees and chocolate drinks – had more than half the daily sugar allowance in one serving.

McCafé’s Coffee Kick Frappe had 19 teaspoons of sugar and Muffin Break’s large chai latte had half the daily allowance of saturated fat. McCafé’s banana bread contained 14 teaspoons of sugar and the kilojoules were equivalent to a Big Mac.

Would it be too much to ask for a similar health-star system to be introduced on menu boards?

The government cannot compel people to eat fruit and vegetables or walk to the bus stop rather than drive. But it can make it easy for them to understand what’s harmful and in the process encourage food manufacturers to make their products healthier.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty comfortable with that level of nannying.