When Achea Redd used to go for annual checkups, she tried to discuss her restrictive eating patterns with her doctors and her fear that she might have an eating disorder. But because her body mass index (BMI) was in the “overweight” category, Redd’s primary care physicians refused to consider the possibility that she might be depriving herself of food and instead counseled her to lose weight, she said.
correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that body mass index is weight divided by height. It is weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. The article has been corrected.
