Symptoms
OA members experience many different patterns of food behaviors. These “symptoms” are as varied as our membership. Among them are:
- Obsession with body weight, size and shape
- Eating binges or grazing
- Preoccupation with reducing diets
- Starving
- Laxative or diuretic abuse
- Excessive exercise
- Inducing vomiting after eating
- Chewing and spitting out food
- Use of diet pills, shots and other medical interventions to control weight
- Inability to stop eating certain foods after taking the first bite
- Fantasies about food
- Vulnerability to quick-weight-loss schemes
- Constant preoccupation with food
- Using food as a reward or comfort