25 August 2008

overeaters anonymous


Assignment:
When eating is about more than hunger

Sunday Flair front for a story about overeaters anonymous, a 12-step program that helps folks dealing with compulsive overeating and food addiction. Reporter is interviewing several folks who have managed to maintain weight lost by going to meetings, communicating daily with sponsors (like in AA), sponsoring others, and abstaining from foods that trigger overeating (often food with sugar and white flour), among other things.
Some possible concepts, unidentifiable person looking in the mirror with some thing to suggest they are doing a fearless moral inventory of self about their relationships with people and food; a 12 step ladder with something to indicate each step of recovery; a person and a sponsor going down the road together


I found a link on wikipedia to the Overeaters Anonymous manual with an anecdotal saying among Overeaters Anonymous members that "when you are addicted to drugs you put the tiger in the cage to recover; when you are addicted to food you put the tiger in the cage, but take it out three times a day for a walk."

I loved the imagery of a hunger being an uncontrollable beast. I took that metaphor and used it as the basis for the image of a man struggling with his urge to eat.

1 comment:

Misterimpatient said...

When I would diet, that tiger was always there. Now, with recovery, the tiger is seldom in the room with me.

The gift of recovery in Overeaters Anonymous is the absence of the tiger, one day at a time!

Oh...and nice illustration too!