OK, with the title of this post, one might imagine that it’s another drag out of no free seats being available for members of frequent flyer programs. Sorry, not htis time. Rather, it’s a comment about one of the most stupid ideas I’ve read in quite some time - well since three days ago. Reading a report from Australia (The Sydney Morning Herald) that mentions in Britain that health officials have begun slashing premiums for members who go to the gym and watch their weight (good idea) BUT, since Australian legislation prohibits using premiums to discriminate, that Dr. Paul Gross, the Director of the Institure of Health Economics and Technology Assessment in Australia, recommends that bonuses such as gym memberships, vouchers for sports equipment AND FREQUENT FLYER POINTS be given out as incentives. The article mentioned that one in four Australian children and one in two adults were overweight or obese (I’m sure it’s worse here in the U.S.) which means that with a population of just over 20 million (4 million of them children) I might be sitting next to 8 million adults and 1 million children that are overweight or obese and getting the frequent flyer seats I thought I was battling for, not battling the bulge. Now, I’ll leave it to the folks on FlyerTalk.com and their threads concerning the obese passenger, but I’ve got to say, I think it a very, very bad idea to force frequent flyer points upon this part of any population for incentives. You know why? Remember, these points/miles are “carrots” for our loyalty and how do you explain a bag of peanuts to a fellow passenger who earned the miles but did not meet their weight loss goals? Put this up there with the idea of  allowing inflight telephone calls using your cell phone.