by Lina Goldberg
The OA 1997 World Service Business Conference, after careful consideration, believes that although many individual OA members choose to follow a plan of eating for their personal plan of recovery, offering food plans at OA meetings is a violation of Tradition 10. While each OA member is free to choose a personal plan of eating to achieve abstinence, OA as a whole cannot print, endorse or distribute food plan information to members. Nutrition is a most controversial outside issue; the hiring of professionals to produce food plans for use at meetings also violates the Eighth Tradition, as we need always remain non-professional. Groups endorsing any food plans by distributing them at their meetings affect OA as a whole. We ask all groups, Intergroups and Regions of OA to adhere to the above policy statement and discontinue use of food plan information at meetings. We ought best concern ourselves with our suggested program of recovery - the Twelve Steps.
For more than 15 years Overeaters Anonymous has not endorsed any specific food plan or diet, instead urging its members to create their own with the advice of their doctor. But the group never seemed the find the unity that it was searching for. Rozanne S., who had originally believed that O.A. should never officially support any specific food plan, has reversed her opinion and recently called for a re-publication of The Dignity of Choice. She has stated that "apathy abounds" in O.A. and that membership is "faltering." She made her appeal for the renewal of the food plans in the hopes that this change in direction would allow Overeaters Anonymous to "survive and flourish." (23)
Overeaters Anonymous, like many groups based on the 12 steps, is similar to but not exactly like Alcoholics Anonymous, which by all accounts has been the most successful--in terms of membership numbers--of all the 12-step programs. Although Overeaters Anonymous did eventually adopt the exact wording of the A.A. 12 steps (substituting the word "food" for "alcohol"), there are some differences between the programs that are perhaps reflected in O.A.'s declining membership. Although Alcoholics Anonymous requests abstinence of its members, it does not give a specific plan or diagram one must comply with to achieve that abstinence. In essence, nothing has changed in A.A. since it began in 1939, and its members unanimously approve of this. Overeaters Anonymous, on the other hand, seems to have had a difficult time in finding a party line to stick to. Even when the group had no sanctioned food plan, members were strongly divided on what "abstinence" means in their program.
Complete information on the history of Overeaters Anonymous is surprisingly hard to find. Because the group is based on volunteerism and anonymity, there are very few official historical records about the group. Much of what has been released officially has been later discontinued. Moreover, in what appears to be an effort to maintain their copyright and protect their interests, the group threatens anyone who uses quotations from their literature or reprints the 12 steps with legal action. As a consequence, a cloud of secrecy hangs over the group and the history of Overeaters Anonymous remains largely unknown, even to its own members.
In its 43-year history, Overeaters Anonymous has adopted numerous food plans for its members. The group has discontinued, replaced, and abolished food plans altogether on a fairly regular basis. With each change the group makes to its food plans--ostensibly to bring unity to the group--it loses many members to splinter groups that either find the old ideas more acceptable, or the new ones distasteful. Overeaters Anonymous is currently in the process of reissuing The Dignity of Choice with six new food plans, a step that has already provoked considerable in-fighting within the group's ranks. Perhaps because the group members are unfamiliar with their own history, they are doomed to repeat it.
Continue reading...Appendix B: Text of the "Grey Sheet" of Overeaters Anonymous
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Citation info: Goldberg, Lina. "Between the Sheets: The History of Overeaters Anonymous and its Food Plans" linagoldberg.com Dec. 03 linagoldberg.com/oa