Tell Me About Overeaters Anonymous?

OA is a self-help group for people with compulsive habits around food.  This includes people who overeat and get too fat, as well as bulemics (those who binge and purge) and even anorexics (those who deliberately starve themselves).  Sometimes anorexics don't feel at home in OA, but many in OA would argue that anorexia can just be the flip side of the same obsession.

OA is one of the family of 12-step programmes.  But it has its own culture and traditions, as well as it's own perceptions of how to abstain from compulsive behaviour.

OA was founded in 1960 and is most active in the USA, although there are many meetings and associations in Britain.  Most members are women, and speaking from personal experience, I'd say that OA is much friendlier than AA or NA.

Abstaining from compulsive eating isn't clearly defined in OA literature, and to some extent is left to individual interpretation.