This morning I was watching one of the morning shows and heard one of the guests say that the Cleveland Clinic would not hire you if you were a smoker. Smoking is deadly and there are several health risks associated with smoking. If you are already employed by them they will send you to smoking cessation classes. This sounded pretty good, but I started to think more about this and you start to see a trend developing. Smoking is still legal in this country so when a company can say they are not hiring smokers isn’t that in fact discriminating? In the same interview they discussed the idea of companies opting not to hire people that are overweight. So will the interview end with step on this scale? Companies are complaining that illnesses associated with obesity are becoming more and more costly. One of my friends who is currently employed with a company that is going down for the third time is hesitant about going on interviews. She says people make immediate conclusions when they look at overweight people and it is hard to get past that barrier. Some will say well why don’t these people just lose weight? When did being overweight become a crime in this country? Obesity a true health issues, but it is not a crime. Will applications have a question asking if you were ever obese? If you have been in the past does that mean you have the potential to be overweight again? Will they ask if any members of your family are obese? If you answer yes, please explain on a separate sheet of paper. This might sound ridiculous, but we all need to think long and hard about this road we are traveling. It all starts with things we can agree could be regarded as bad, and then it could get a little more close to home. Once we have eliminated the smokers and the obese from the job pool who is next?