The Northeastern North Carolina Partnership for Public Health (NENCPPH) has supported a variety of healthy weight promotion initiatives, including Faithful Families Eating Smart and Moving More (now called Faithful Families Thriving Communities), the CDC funded Obesity, Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Stroke Prevention Program, the regional Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), the Partners in Community Health (PICH) regional healthy foods coalition, worksite wellness programs, and the regional walking challenge. NENCPPH also worked to increase awareness of healthy weight initiatives throughout the region, in part through a regional health events calendar.
Regional Walking Challenge
In order to promote active living amongst health department staff, the NENCPPH initiated an annual regional walking challenge between health departments in the fall of 2017. The health departments formed numerous teams of five staff members. The health department with the team walking the most steps in the allotted time frame was awarded the traveling trophy until the next year’s winner is announced. The first year the challenge lasted eight weeks; the second and third years was reduced to six weeks. Starting in 2018, Health Departments were also encouraged to challenge other agencies or departments in their counties and come up with creative ways to encourage participation. During the first year of implementation, five health departments, 42 teams, and 207 team members participated in the eight-week challenge. By the third annual competition 49 teams representing all seven health departments in the region as well as eleven teams of partnering agencies participated with a grand total of 290 participants. Starting the second year of the Challenge, a traveling trophy and certificate were also presented to the Partnering Agency with the highest team average number of steps. Certificates were also provided to the team with the most creative name and the individuals with the most steps from the participating LHDs and from the Partnering Agencies.
Other Wellness Challenges
The NENCPPH formed a wellness challenges taskforce in 2020 in order to oversee the annual walking challenge and implement other wellness challenges for regional local health department staff, and possibly others in the community. In the winter of 2021, a 30-day individual wellness challenge was designed and provided to local health departments (LHDs) to implement if they so desired. Almost half of the LHDs implemented the challenge. The taskforce is considering implementing other wellness challenges.
Healthy Food and Beverage Policy
The NENCPPH healthy weight action team drafted a healthy food and beverage policy which they recommended to the NENCPPH Board of Directors, and it was adopted. The action team also recommended that each member health department adopt this or a similar policy for their county(ies).
Faithful Families Thriving Communities (Formerly Faithful Families Eating Smart and Moving More)
As a means of addressing obesity in the Northeastern Region, the NENCPPH healthy weight action team chose the Faithful Families Eating Smart and Moving More (FFESMM), which changed its name to Faithful Families Thriving Communities, initiative as one to implement throughout the NENCPPH region.
The FFESMM initiative works with faith communities to see what can be done to improve healthy eating and active living within their faith community. Individual as well as community efforts are stressed. Lay leaders from the faith communities assist to set-up classes and provide instruction of the 9-weeks of classes which target healthy eating and active living. The faith community is also asked to review and select an environmental and/or policy change which could have a positive impact on the health of the faith community as a whole. Examples of policy and environmental changes include: providing water whenever food and drinks are provided, or creating a walking trail on the property.
FFESMM Facilitators have been trained from each of the local health departments and/or Cooperative Extension Offices covering the 16 NENCPPH counties. Facilitators identify faith communities to work with, facilitate the classes along side of lay health workers from the faith communities, and work with the faith communities to identify and implement environmental and/or policy changes. The NENCPPH has provided support to the program through coordination, sharing between facilitators, and monetary support for training materials and food demonstrations.