In 1998 millions of Americans became “overweight” and “obese” literally overnight. It wasn’t because they had epically binged before going to bed—contrary to what diet culture would have you believe, a binge won’t make you suddenly larger. It was something much more bureaucratic: The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. federal agency in charge of setting the official BMI categories for American guidelines, released a report changing its thresholds for what it considered “overweight” and “obese.” People suddenly moved into new, higher BMI categories without having gained any weight
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