In 2007, the Natural Learning Initiative (NLI) launched the POD (Preventing Obesity by Design) strategy. In 2015, POD was piloted in South Carolina by the Departments of Social Services (DSS) and Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), beginning with a design workshop in Florence.

The POD strategy is a built environment, nature-based intervention in the outdoor spaces of licensed childcare facilities. The aim is to enrich outdoor play and learning environments to foster life-long healthy habits by increasing physical activity, healthy eating, outdoor learning, and social-emotional development of young children during their formative years. Key components include landscape design, rigorous evaluation, cross-sector professional development, and website-based information dissemination. POD implementation employs collaborative participatory processes to engage stakeholders, including designers, technical assistants (TAs), owners, center directors, teachers, parents, children, community supporters, and state regulatory staff.

Grow Outdoors South Carolina (SC) was launched in 2020 to extend the reach of prior POD initiatives and celebrate POD achievements already on the ground. The new Grow Outdoors SC Expansion Project will implement POD statewide in continuing partnership with NLI, plus the implementation expertise of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) program.