Overeaters Anonymous

Tavistock Overeaters Anonymous (OA) aims to help people who struggle with their behaviour around food. It is not just about weight loss, weight gain or maintenance, obesity or diets; the OA programme offers physical, emotional and spiritual recovery for those who suffer from the problem of compulsive eating. This could include: obsession with body weight, size and shape; eating binges or grazing; preoccupation with diets; starving; laxative or diuretic abuse; excessive exercise; inducing vomiting after eating; use of diet pills and other medical interventions to control weight; inability to stop eating certain foods after taking the first bite and a constant preoccupation with food. Members find recovery by following a programme patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous. They find that yoyo dieting is a thing of the past and no longer wish to return to eating compulsively. In OA, there are people who are morbidly obese, extremely or moderately overweight, average weight or underweight; some have maintained periodic control over their eating behaviour, while others have been totally unable to control their compulsive eating. The only requirement for membership in OA is a desire to stop eating compulsively.   

Kathryn, a 41-year-old mother-of-one, who lives near Tavistock shares her story: 

“For most of my life I have either been gaining or losing weight and have had clothes ranging from a size 10 to a size 24. At times I have been obsessed with being skinny – cutting out meals and eating as little as possible in a desperate bid to lose weight to the point where I fainted. At other times I have been obsessed with overeating – shoving as much chocolate, cake and ice cream into my mouth as possible, to the point of feeling physically sick - and then feeling ashamed and bitterly disappointed with myself. I lived my life this way from the age of 12 until my early 30s when I simply could not cope with it any longer. There were times when I would choose to spend my evenings bingeing on food rather than seeing friends. There were also times when I would leave my desk at work in order to go and buy chocolate and cakes which I would eat in the loo. 

I felt despairing and thought I would have to live the rest of my life in this insane, self-destructive way, until I heard a friend of a friend in Tavistock talking about how she, too, used to gain and lose weight rapidly and obsess about food. I heard the past tense ‘she used’, and wondered what this confident, healthy-looking young woman had done to change her behaviour around food. So I asked her and she told me about OA – a group of people who had struggled with food - binge eating, restricting their eating, over-exercising or purging. In the same way that Alcoholics Anonymous helps people to stop drinking alcohol, OA helps people to stop problematic behaviour around food. I started going to OA meetings eight years ago and I have learned to eat healthy, appetising meals three times a day. I don’t diet and I don’t obsess about what I’m eating. I wear the same dress size as I did eight years ago because my weight no longer goes up and down and I don’t worry about what other people think of my weight because I know I am healthy, happy and, most importantly, sane. Going to an OA meeting and admitting I had a problem with food was hard – but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done and I’ve never regretted it. I would urge anyone who struggles with food to come along and give it a go.”

Tavistock OA meets on Mondays from 7.30pm to 8.30pm at Trident House, 2 Taylor Square. For more information about Overeaters Anonymous log onto www.oagb.org.uk or telephone 07000 784985.