Overeaters Anonymous
[1] OA is for people with problems related to food including, but not limited to, compulsive overeaters, those with binge eating disorder, bulimics and anorexics.
Anyone with a problematic relationship with food is welcomed; OA's Third Tradition states that the only requirement for memberships is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
[4] Like other twelve-step programs, OA sees compulsive eating as a threefold illness, symbolically understanding human structure as having three dimensions: physical, mental and spiritual.
A book describing itself as based on OA methods states that in the mental dimension a compulsive eater is not "eating down" feelings, but rather expressing an "inner hunger.
"[9] To help potential members decide whether or not they need the program, OA provides a questionnaire, asking questions such as, "Do you give too much time and thought to food?"
[12] OA literature specifically defines "compulsion" as follows: "By definition, 'compulsion' means 'an impulse or feeling of being irresistibly driven toward the performance of some irrational action.
[15] In Overeaters Anonymous, abstinence is "the action of refraining from compulsive eating while working towards or maintaining a healthy body weight."
The researchers conducting the analysis suggested that new members begin with a somewhat rigid plan which becomes increasingly flexible by the end of a year in the program.
Both figures are generally in line with estimates made by the American Psychological Association that the male to female ratio of those with eating disorders ranges from 1:6 to 1:10.
[4] Research has identified a number of OA practices significantly correlating with maintaining abstinence in OA: adherence to a food plan (including weighing and measuring food), communication with other members (specifically sponsors), spending time in prayer and meditation, performing service work, completing the fourth step, completing the ninth step, writing down thoughts and feelings, attending meetings, reading OA/AA literature, and the educational status of the participant.
Researchers have therefore concluded that application of OA practices might directly help promote abstinence and reduce the frequency of relapse in those with binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa.
Researchers have noted the high level of honesty at OA meetings and pointed out that working the Twelve Steps reinforces this quality.
In particular, an increased sense of spirituality was correlated with improvement in eating attitudes, fewer body shape concerns, and better psychological and social functioning.
The self-destructive behavior of injecting intoxicating drugs parallels overeating; it permits the user to experience comfort, and to feel punished afterwards.
Paradoxically, an OA member's experience of themselves was also characterized by strong feelings of personal failure, dependence, despair, stress, nervousness, low self-esteem, powerlessness, lack of control, self-pity, frustration and loneliness.
Their testimonies show that, paradoxically, it is by becoming aware of their powerlessness and accepting the self's basic limitations that they begin to feel the recovering self's growing power.
While their eating disorder was active, many OA members claimed that their experience of self was composed of an obsessive aspiration for perfection which concealed their sense of worthlessness.
[20] A significant difference between Twelve Step work and cognitive-behavioral therapy is the acceptance of a Higher Power and providing peer support.
OA meetings are intended to provide a forum for the expression of experience, strength and hope in an environment of safety and simplicity.
[4] OA has been an object of feminist criticism for encouraging bulimic and binge-eating women to accept powerlessness over food.
Twelve-step programs are described as predominantly male organizations that force female members to accept self-abasement, powerlessness and external focus, and reject responsibility.
[4][20] OA contends that the context of powerlessness within the program isn't referring to an individual's flaws, but simply with the acceptance that they have a problem with food that they cannot seem to defeat with their unaided will.
Surveys of OA members have found that they exercise regularly, attend religious services, engage in individual psychotherapy and are being prescribed antidepressants.
