They say that once a metric becomes a target it’s no longer a useful metric, but I really do wonder how bad the world would be if life expectancy, depression ra

They say that once a metric becomes a target it’s no longer a useful metric, but I really do wonder how bad the world would be if life expectancy, depression rates, and literacy rates were headline stats rather than GDP. Measured accurately, is life expectancy really something we should worry could be “gamed”? The easiest way to improve life expectancy is to prevent babies from dying, which sounds like a laudable goal.