What is Overeaters Anonymous (OA)?
Overeaters Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women from all walks of life who meet in order to help solve a common problem – compulsive overeating. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively. How did OA start? In January 1960, three people living in Los Angeles, California, began meeting for the purpose of helping each other with their eating problems. They had tried everything else and failed. The program they followed was – and continues to be – patterned after the Alcoholics Anonymous program. From that first meeting, OA has grown until today there are thousands of meetings in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries throughout the world. How do OA members lose weight and maintain their normal weight? The concept of abstinence is the basis of OA’s program of recovery. By admitting inability to control compulsive overeating in the past, and abandoning the idea that all one needs to be able to eat normally is “a little w
