All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Froot Loops, Cookie Crisp, Reese's Puffs - I almost got a cavity just reading that. Yet, they're the kinds of sugary cereals children beg for at the grocery store.

The boxes and T-V ads usually have a colorful cartoon character on them. But, one group of researchers is not amused.

The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University reports that cereal companies spend more than $156 million a year on ads geared for kids.

At a time when 12 percent of U.S. children from ages 2 to 5 are considered obese - along with 17 percent of kids 6 to 11 - this problem is anything but sweet.

All parents have been there in that grocery aisle - having to decide between what the kids want and what you know is better for them.

But maybe some oatmeal for your Little Miss Sweet Tooth can help her avoid big health issues in the future.

Don't let a bunny or a tucan take over your parenting role. Tell them you are coo coo for good nutrition, not for Cocoa Puffs.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

Katie's on assignment.

Here's the skinny on health care in America: We are simply too fat and it's costing us a fortune in medical bills.

Despite all those fad diets and fat free products in the grocery store aisles, obesity has increased by 37 percent since 1998. Along with the love handles and muffin tops come a smorgasbord of problems - including diabetes and heart disease.

A new study published in the journal Health Affairs found that obese people pay an average of $1,400 more per year in health care costs, a total of $147 billion annually.

The head of the group behind the report sent a wake-up call to Congress, saying that unless the growing problem of obesity is addressed, America will be unable to contain its health spending.

Experts say essentials like proper diet and exercise need to be at the core of any health policy lawmakers consider.

The only way to tighten our belts - is to tighten our bellies.

I'm Kelly Wallace, CBS News.

Dr. Jonathan LaPook is the medical correspondent for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

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Tonight’s story focuses on a report from the Framingham Heart Study that suggests that obesity – and thinness – can spread through social ties. And it’s not just that obese people tend to hang out together. If one of a pair of mutual friends BECOMES obese (defined as Body Mass Index, or BMI>= 30) then the risk of the other becoming obese increases by 171%! And social closeness is much more important than geographic closeness. There was no effect for next door neighbors who weren’t friends. But a friend 1,000 miles away influences you as much as a friend next door.

One of the most surprising findings was that the effect extends out three levels of friendship. Not only are you affected by your friend, but by your friend’s friend and your friend’s friend’s friend. If everybody is connected by six degrees of separation, think how many people might be influenced by three degrees of separation!

I spoke to James Fowler, Ph.D., an author of the study appearing in July 26th’s edition of the The New England Journal of Medicine. He is excited about the public health implications of this study. Think how many people might be helped by one person’s healthy lifestyle. The same effect that can cause an obese friend to increase a friend’s risk of obesity by 171% works the other way too. As Dr. Fowler told me, “When your obese friend loses weight and becomes either overweight or a normal weight, it reduces your risk of obesity by 63%.”

Harnessing the power of friendships may well be the new new thing in medicine.

Kelly Cobiella is a CBS News Correspondent based in Dallas.

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Some days a person just doesn’t have time to be healthy.

That’s what I told myself yesterday, as I ran around Dallas preparing a report on America’s great weight problem. The snooze button conspired against me and the best laid breakfast plans. Forget yogurt and wheat toast after an early morning run. Instead, I was running to the shower, late for work. So breakfast came from the café across the hall from my office: a fried egg, bacon and cheese sandwich…on wheat toast. Lunch wasn’t much better…a fast food fried chicken sandwich. The side salad is still sitting on my desk. Salads are too time-consuming. They require forks. This is how a large part of America eats.

And if it’s not time…it’s the food itself conspiring against our good intentions. The woman I interviewed yesterday, Tracie Beley, is more than a hundred pounds overweight and says she got that way because she uses food to feed her soul. As she put it “bread makes me feel good.” And now that she’s so heavy, she can’t exercise because her joints ache under the extra weight. She’s scheduled to undergo bariatric surgery in two weeks…shrinking her stomach to stop her from eating.

As for me, I’m not sure how I got to the point where I’d see a fried chicken commercial and think, “my legs and thighs will survive a bucket of those legs and thighs…as long as I take an extra lap around the mall.” Intellectually I know that a thirty minute run makes me feel good. I like the way my lungs burn and my muscles ache. And there is enough time in the day…even this day.

So I’m stepping away from the keyboard and lacing up my running shoes. And I’m saving that salad for dinner.

More and more Americans are now severely obese -- that is, more than 100 pounds overweight. A health care crisis is looming, and this should be a wake up call for all of us.

Just click the monitor to watch.