Food Addicts Anonymous
Encyclopedia
Food Addicts Anonymous is a twelve-step program
Twelve-step program
A Twelve-Step Program is a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems...

 for people with a bio chemical food addictions, patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...

. The program is based on the premise that some people are addict
Addiction
Historically, addiction has been defined as physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances which cross the blood-brain barrier once ingested, temporarily altering the chemical milieu of the brain.Addiction can also be viewed as a continued involvement with a substance or activity...

ed to refined high-carbohydrate
Carbohydrate
A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the empirical formula ; that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 . However, there are exceptions to this. One common example would be deoxyribose, a component of DNA, which has the empirical...

 foods and need to abstain from those foods in order to avoid overconsumption.

Food Addicts Anonymous was founded in 1987 in West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...

, where it is still based. The founder calls herself "Judith C." By 2007 there were over 150 weekly in-person meetings around the world, plus phone and online meetings.

The organisation has meetings currently in the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Norway, Sweden and Ireland. The meetings are sometimes but not always held in the same places they treat other addictions such as alcohol addiction. There is sometimes a link between alcohol addiction and food addiction, (since one of the addictive substances is sugar.) The organization has a suggested food plan that calls for abstinence from sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

, flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

, and wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, but it has no association with diet or weight loss
Weight loss
Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health or physical fitness, is a reduction of the total body mass, due to a mean loss of fluid, body fat or adipose tissue and/or lean mass, namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue...

programs.

The Meeting section contains information about four types of meetings:

1. Face-to-Face, or in-person meetings. These are meetings held in certain cities regularly.

2. Phone Meetings-these are free phone meetings available to anyone in the world.

3. Online Meetings- a 24/7 Chat Room.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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