There's so much wrong with America's diet that it's hard to narrow it down - but one area that especially worries me is school lunch. More than 30 million children get their lunch at school. About half of them qualify for free lunches, and for those children, school food is often the only solid meal they get all day. Recognizing this, many cities have implemented free breakfasts, too, and cities including New York, Boston, Massachusetts, and Louisville, Kentucky, have extended meal programs to the summer, even when classes aren't in session.

Now, I'm heartened to see a movement growing to put healthier food on those cafeteria trays. Just a few examples I ran across in the past few months:

- Some schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, read nutrition labels in class and study nutrition as part of computer class.

- The Miami-Dade County school district in Florida offers health and nutrition classes for parents.

- Seattle, Washington, public schools solicit recipes for menu items from district parents. Each spring the district makes sure the food meets nutritional guideline and reformulates the recipes if they don't. If kids like new foods, they go on the menu in the fall. Some examples: Vietnamese sandwich (turkey ham on Vietnamese roll with carrot-radish slaw and served with tropical fruit salad), Somali spaghetti (spaghetti with carrots and potatoes), Louisiana gumbo (traditional Southern style) and phat prik gai (Thai green beans and chicken).

- We also ran across schools, all over the country where kids grow some of their own food, to drive home the message that food doesn't grown in a plastic wrapping or a freezer package.

So improving school lunches is an issue that's on the table. What's eating you when it comes to food and diet?

Watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta's latest Special Investigations Unit program "Fed Up: America's Killer Diet" Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET

Knowledge is power. It sounds trite, but it is true. Think about it. If you keep an eye on the stock market and read up on investing, you are more likely to make money. If you know something about cars, then you are less likely to get bad advice from your mechanic.

The same thing is true with health care. If you know the right questions to ask your doctor and what to look for, then you are more likely to get the treatment you need. A few months ago, CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen began writing a column called Empowered Patient on CNN.com. Each week, we talk with experts and advocates about real life medical issues. It is practical advice, information you can use NOW - no Petri dish science.

We have been excited by the response and know there are many stories out there to be told. We want to hear from you. What are the topics you'd like us to tackle? Do you have any stories about becoming a more 'empowered patient'?

Elizabeth Cohen's Empowered Patient reports can also be seen on "House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta" at 830 a.m. Saturday and Sunday ET.

Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death in America -- Do you know why?

Could America's diet be structured in such a way that we're set up to fail?

Make sure to tune in Saturday and Sunday, September 22nd and 23rd at 8pm, 11pm and 2am to catch "Special Investigations Unit - Fed Up: America's Killer Diet."

In the meantime, get an exclusive look at the trailer on the Paging Dr. Gupta podcast.

Imagine feeling profoundly lousy for months, even years at a stretch. On many days, you can't even get out of bed. Sleep doesn't help. You go to the doctor, get tests, but a diagnosis remains elusive - and treatments incomplete. That's what life can be like for people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

More than one million Americans have CFS, a debilitating illness researchers have been studying for some 20 years. There are few clues to what causes it (infectious agents? toxins?). And many questions (how do you treat CFS? Isn't it really just a 'fake' illness?).

Now, researchers in California say chronic fatigue syndrome may be linked to the presence of enteroviruses -- viral microorganisms that reside in your gut. Using endoscopies, researchers analyzed stomach tissue biopsy samples from patients with CFS - and found more than 80% of them had high levels of viruses in their digestive system. (All 165 patients had gastrointestinal complaints as part of their CFS litany of symptoms.)

Does this mean you should run to the doctor and demand a test? Not yet.

"Anybody who has chronic fatigue doesn't need to run out to their doctor and get an upper endoscopy, explains Dr. James King, president-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians. "Even though this is very helpful and promising, it's not to the point that the treatment for chronic fatigue will change soon."

Do you think you might have chronic fatigue syndrome? If you have 4 or more of the following symptoms you may want to get checked:

* severe fatigue 6+ months or longer
*memory impairment
*sore throat
*swollen lymph nodes
*muscle & joint pain
*poor quality sleep
(Source: CDC)

While there is no cure for chronic fatigue syndrome in sight, researchers see this as an important jumping-off point: They can now study how these viruses behave, how to detect them, and how to kill them with anti-viral medications. The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.

Have you lived with chronic fatigue syndrome? For how long? What were your best days and worst days like?

Health insurance and the lack of it are being talked about quite a bit in this already very active presidential election campaign. The war in Iraq and the economy may be bigger issues, but the health care does occasionally make headlines. It will today.

Sen. Hillary Clinton will announce her plan for universal health care today in Iowa. Campaign sources say her plan would require all Americans to have health insurance and would cost the federal government around $110 billion.

Not to be upstaged by the former First Lady, former Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, who was the first Democratic presidential candidate to announce his plan for health insurance for all Americans, is expected to make the following proposal later today: He wants to cut off taxpayer supported health care for the president, Congress and all political appointees in mid 2009, if a universal health care plan for all Americans has not been passed by then (according to campaign sources).

Today, the American Cancer Society is launching an ad campaign to increase awareness of the health care insurance situation in this country. Instead of telling us to get a colonoscopy because it saves lives... or to stop smoking because it can kill you and those around you, ACS hopes to raise awareness about the un-insured and underinsured. (more info at http://www.cancer.org/).

I've been very fortunate. As a child, I grew up in Germany, where everyone had access to basic health insurance. I grew up knowing, if I got sick, I could go to the doctor without cost concerns (heck, I can still remember the doctor coming to see me... I guess that makes me "old"!). In college I was covered by my dad's insurance and then I landed a job at CNN, which, as part of a large corporation, has always offered a generous health insurance package. But I'm not unfamiliar with what it's like to be uninsured. I have relatives who are among the millions of uninsured Americans who don't go to the doctor when they were sick, for fear of being saddled with huge bills.

The latest Census Bureau data puts the number of uninsured at 47 million. The most recent numbers for the underinsured, those with insurance but not the kind that covers all or most of their expenses, is estimated to be another 16 million.. but that figure is 4 years old.

Last week I met a young woman named Lisa, she lives in Chicago and is one of those "underinsured" Americans. She tells me she's always worked hard - has been supporting herself since she was 18, and thought her health insurance would be cover her should she ever get sick. Four years ago, she was diagnosed with tongue and neck cancer. Her doctors told her it was most likely from being exposed to second-hand smoke. She told me that despite having health insurance, a lot of her treatments were not covered.

Lisa says her medical bills "lead to $65,000 for medical bills and credit card bills." She told me she had to cash out her 401K (which meant she had to pay penalties) and had collections agencies hounding her. She paid what she could but she says she was forced into bankruptcy. "Not only was I fighting for my life, but I was also financially devastated."

Lisa's doing better now... so far she's cancer free. But she still has to go for regular check-ups to make sure it hasn't come back. That means more medical bills. So even though she declared bankruptcy, she's still in a financial dead end. She doesn't know what the solution is, but she hopes the politicians will come up with a way to fix the problem with health insurance.

Lisa's story is just one... but there are probably many more people with stories like hers. Have you suffered financially because of a lack of insurance or because your insurance didn't cover enough? Would a presidential candidate's position on this issue influence your vote in November 2008?