Emotional Overeating Support Groups

[Rachel Morris]

Beat have successfully secured a Department of Health grant to develop our work in the area of overeating and obesity.

This funding is being utilised to establish a network of Emotional Overeating Support Groups in East and West Midlands and East Anglia.

The groups, facilitated by trained Beat volunteers, will provide an open and non-judgemental space for peer support between adults who:

Binge eat
Compulsively overeat
Feel they have emotional eating issues
Are overweight, obese or struggling with their weight

The groups will enable individuals to:

Meet other people in similar situations and gain peer support
Discuss their experiences in a safe, confidential and stigma-free environment
Gain information about resources and services

The groups will not provide therapy, counselling or advice and are open to anyone over the age of 18. No fees, medical referral or weigh-in will be required and individuals can attend groups as often or as seldom as they need.

eosg@b-eat.co.uk

If you have any questions or queries related to this topic please do not hesitate to post them on this site or via email.

With Thanks, Alex and Rachel

[Alex Ashcroft]

Here is some feedback from one of our group attendees:

"The Emotional Overeating support group offers a safe and supportive environment in which to meet other people facing similar challenges to myself. For all of us, it is the beginning of a journey as we seek to understand the reasons that lead us to eat to feed an emotion rather than a genuine hunger. For me, this kind of change can only come as part of a group. The contributions of the other members are invaluable to me as we share ideas for positively changing habituated behaviour(s). Although I don't yet know how I will beat this, I suspect the process of overcoming this will:
(a) be a long process
(b) be one where other people are able to 'see' my situation clearer than I can myself
(c) involve incentivising change in small achievable steps, rather than through big sweeping changes or 'will power'