I have no emotional attachment to the number known as BMI—the Body Mass Index.
When I see it in print I feel neither pleasure nor anger, joy nor despair, hope nor fear.
It is an index—a mathematical trick that lives in the same part of my brain as other indexes: the CI (Cardiac Index), the AHI (Apnea-Hypopnea Index), the CPI (Consumer Price index), ….
Measuring and quantifying people is always a socially risky business, and using indexes to measure and quantify people is riskier still. (The units of an index are often difficult to connect with in the real world. After all, in the case of BMI, what does kg/meter2 mean?)
But I find the current popular ire against BMI quite odd, especially considering what the insurance companies will decide to use as a replacement.