The Fit Community Initiative is a strategy to address the growing rates of obesity among North Carolina adults and children. Fit Community is a program designed to recognize and reward municipality and county-wide efforts to promote physical activity, healthy eating and tobacco-free programs, policies, environments, and lifestyles. The comprehensive program promotes and helps implement proven and innovative interventions to increase physical activity and healthy food choices in the community. The initiative is a designation and grants program that promotes a community-based approach to prevention. The approach is based on the growing body of evidence which shows the critical role that communities plan in implementing policies and community environments that facilitate healthy decision making. The Designation awards recognize ongoing efforts in the community. Grant awards reward the community’s new efforts to support physical activity and/or health eating initiatives in communities, school, and workplaces. The grants provide funding and technical assistance to the communities that seek to improve health by implementing intervention strategies at the community level.

The goal of the Fit Community initiative is to recognize communities that are making better quality of life a real priority by granting them awards to help in the implementation of community interventions targeting physical activity and healthy eating.

Since its inception in 2005, Fit Community has awarded nineteen designation awards and twenty four grants to various North Carolina communities and organizations. These awards signify the immense prevention efforts that are taking place in North Carolinian communities to increase routine physical activity and/or health eating among the local population.