Overeaters Anonymous can help you take control of your life

Not just about weight loss

Overeaters Anonymous (OA) 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 compulsive eating. Members recover on all three levels by following a Twelve-Step programme patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous.

Members who recover through the Twelve Steps find that yoyo dieting is a thing of the past. They no longer wish to return to eating compulsively.

OA members experience many different patterns of food behaviours. These “symptoms” are as varied as our membership. Among them are:

• Obsession with body weight, size and shape
• Eating binges or grazing
• Preoccupation with reducing diets
• Starving
• Laxative or diuretic abuse
• Excessive exercise
• Inducing vomiting after eating
• Chewing and spitting out food
• Use of diet pills, shots and other medical interventions to control weight
• Inability to stop eating certain foods after taking the first bite
• Fantasies about food
• Vulnerability to quick-weight-loss schemes
• Constant preoccupation with food
• Using food as a reward or comfort

The only requirement for membership in OA is a desire to stop eating compulsively

• OA is not affiliated to any public or private organisation, political movement, ideology or religious doctrine and takes no position on issues outside of its own programme.
• No membership dues or fees are required for participation in OA.
• The organisation is self-supporting through members’ voluntary donations and the sale of OA literature.

In OA, you’ll find members who are morbidly obese, extremely or moderately overweight, average weight or underweight; still maintaining periodic control over their eating behaviour; or totally unable to control their compulsive eating. The only requirement for membership in OA is a desire to stop eating compulsively.

Similar to other Twelve Step programmes, a key tenet of OA is anonymity, which offers members freedom of expression, equality and safeguards within the OA community. Anonymity at the level of press, radio, television and other media of communication provides assurance that OA membership will not be disclosed. This protects both the individual and OA membership as a whole.

Meetings are held in Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban

For a meeting closest to you or for more information visit www.oa.org.za or call 011 640 2901 or 076 274 5474.

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