About the fellowship
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Overeaters Anonymous, or OA, is a free, anonymous fellowship of people who help each other recover from compulsive eating and other difficult patterns with food. Members follow a twelve-step programme, with meetings across the UK in person and online.
There are no fees and no referrals. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
OA is for anyone whose relationship with food has become painful, whether that is compulsive overeating, eating in secret, restricting, bingeing and purging, or feeling unable to stop thinking about food and weight. Whatever shape it takes, you are welcome, and you do not need a diagnosis to come.
People of every size and background come to OA. It is the shared experience that matters, not how you look.
OA does not hand out diets, meal plans, weigh-ins, or weight targets, and it is not a slimming group. It is a fellowship where people work on the thinking and feelings underneath the eating and support each other to change. Any plan of eating is between you and your own doctor or dietitian.
Overeaters Anonymous began in 1960 in California, started by a woman who recognised her own story with food while sitting in a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. The twelve steps were adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous, and OA now meets in over seventy countries, including across the UK in person, online, and as hybrids.