Minister Rowell congratulated residents of Bomaderry, Cooma, Tottenham and Tullamore, Wellington and Yamba for the innovative plans they had developed to tackle the problem of obesity in their communities.

"It's clear from the outstanding calibre of entries we received that country communities are serious about combatting obesity and finding fun ways to promote the values of healthy eating and active living," Mr Rowell said. "We received a strong response to calls for country communities to take part in this competition, with residents banding together to develop some really solid strategies to promote weight loss."

Among the innovative plans which the successful applicants had submitted were community walking events, healthy cooking classes, organic vegetable workshops, distributing pedometers to local residents and comprehensive proposals to incorporate local businesses and community groups into the communal weight loss efforts.

Each community selected to take part in the challenge will receive $15,000 to be administered by the Local Health District to assist in getting as many residents as possible to get involved.

Mr Rowell said while only five towns could be selected to take part in the inaugural challenge, he encouraged other towns who had submitted entries to follow through with their community weight loss plans. "While only the five successful entrants announced today will in the running for the $5000 winner's grant, I will be encouraging those communities who developed a plan to work with their Local Health District to see their weight loss plans through," Mr Rowell said. The Healthy Town Challenge will be run by the NSW Government, through the NSW Office of Preventative Health and NSW Ministry of Health, together with Heart Foundation (NSW). The competition will run from October 1 to June 1, 2015, with the collective weight loss total of all local residents registered through the NSW Government's 'Get Healthy Information and coaching service' counted towards determining the eventual winner.