Sports venues and stadiums play an important role in promoting physical activity and contributing to a healthier and happier Queensland. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders enjoy sporting events at the many facilities across our great state, and food and drinks have become a part of enhancing their experience.

These facilities can encourage healthier eating by providing, promoting and advertising healthier food and drink options to create a happier and healthier legacy for Queenslanders.

A Better Choice aims to increase the availability and promotion of healthier food and drinks in sport and recreation venues and stadiums. While change can take time, the following steps can help venues and stadiums to implement A Better Choice effectively.

Step 1: Tackle change one goal at a time

Make changes over time. Use these helpful resources to start with small easy changes to improve the provision and promotion of healthy food and drinks across four areas.

• Healthy drinks
  Choose water first, limit unhealthy drinks.
• Healthy snacks
  Refuel with fruit and healthier snacks.
• Healthier meals
  Green up the menu, add healthier options and limit unhealthy ones.
• Beyond the menu
  Feature healthy options in rewards and fundraisers.

Once your venue and stadium has made changes successfully, move onto step 2 to really lift your food and drink offerings.

Step 2: Set targets to get a better balance

The next step is to work towards the A Better Choice food and drink targets to achieve a better balance in your menu offerings. The A Better Choice food and drink targets use a traffic light system that classifies food and drinks according to their nutritional value. For retail outlets the targets are to offer:

• a minimum of 50% of food and drinks in the green category
• a maximum of 20% of food and drinks in the red category
• the remaining proportion can be food and drinks from the amber or green category.

To learn more about the targets and how to determine if food and drink options available are classified as green, amber or red refer to the A Better Choice Strategy for Sport and Recreation (PDF, 3.77MB).