It's interesting that Quetelet Index aka BMI is arguably 'wrong' as it's comparing volume of something with one dimension ^2 instead of one dimension ^3. There are reasons it's valuable in human health as square cube law scaling has negative consequences. Still, it's interesting just how 'old' that measurement is.
The BMI is more right than wrong. The strength of a physical object varies with cross-area, so the strength of your heart varies as height squared. The amount of work it has to do varies as mass, which does tend to scale as height cubed.
From my very anecdotal perspective, BMI is only used when addressing obesity or anorexia as a first-order approximation, or rather illustration and a way to find out where you are in relation to peers of the same sex/height/age. Do other formulæ fare better in those use cases?
