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A recent poll in Fitness magazine revealed that 1 in 4 people would rather spend a week in jail, shave their heads or wear a bikini on TV than weigh an extra 50 pounds. One in 5 would actually give up 10 years of their life to not have the additional girth. But that's nothing compared to this next stat: Nine in 10 people said they'd take an extra toe rather than the extra weight! Around 75 percent of women currently are on (or have recently been on) a diet. Meanwhile, more than half of all women admit to having sat down and eaten a whole box of cookies or other junk food. Talk about true confessions!

Body image is such a difficult issue. On one hand, you have someone like actress Keira Knightley who has been photographed looking skeletal. On the other hand, you have people like musician/actress Queen Latifah. The Queen has a curvaceous body image and is proud of it. As we all know, there's no magic pill for weight loss. It has to happen through developing lifetime habits of watching what you eat and exercising. Clark himself is caught somewhere in the middle of it all. He admittedly has terrible eating habits, but he's also an exercise maniac.

People often ask Clark when they should get rid of their electronics and/or when they should fix them. When it comes to digital cameras, camcorders, TVs and laptop computers, Consumer Reports says that it's OK to fix them during the first year of ownership. Some electronics come with a 1-year (or 90-day) warranty that allows for repair or replacement. So here's a tip: Don't use instant in-store financing when you initially purchase electronics. First, it will hurt your credit to do so. Second, you will miss out on the automatic doubling of manufacturer's warranties that your credit card may offer.

Let's return to the Consumer Reports advice: Fixing during the first year is a no-brainer, but the second year is a flip of the coin for most kinds of electronics -- except laptops. With laptops, the prices drop so rapidly and the technology advances so quickly that you'll be better off just buying a new one. So that brings us to Clark's final point: When should you buy an extended warranty on an electronics item? Never! Consumer Reports recently revealed that HDTVs are now so reliable that you never need to waste your money on warranties.

Small business owners and individuals are becoming more and more frustrated trying to get health insurance. Clark knows a man who is a health insurance broker with some medical issues. His ailments prevent even him from getting and keeping health insurance -- and this is his line of work! Insurance originally operated under a risk-pooling model: Everyone was in one huge pot and the healthy paid for the sick; the sick convalesced and paid for the next sick ones; and so on. Today insurers use a completely different method where they evaluate each individual or small biz. Past illnesses will "redline" you and you'll usually get the heave-ho. Insurers have been so rotten about this that that millions have given up trying to get coverage.

The irony is that now insurers are looking for individual and small business customers, according to Business Week. But their premiums are still so outrageous that they're not affordable to many small businesses. Another interesting fact: Most big companies offer health-reimbursement plans, not real "insurance plans." You may have a branded insurance card and a list of in-network doctors, but the "insurance company" is just serving as a claims processor for your employer. Big employers gave up on insurers providing affordable coverage and now assume the risk themselves. It now may be possible for small businesses, individuals and families to potentially find more affordable coverage. Take a look around because this is a new scenario in the marketplace. But pre-existing conditions or poor medical history may still redline you.

The health insurance issue has been a hot one on the campaign trail. John Edwards and other Democrats have been pummeling insurers over the way they've been treating people. Insurers and their GOP supporters in Congress must offer reasonable plans to individuals and small businesses that don't redline. The alternative is too frightening; every time another free-enterpriser can't get insurance because of past history, that's another person who starts to think that socialized medicine may be the answer.

Clark's Consumer Action Center answers calls off the air 45 hours a week. There's been a shift over the years from calls about cars and houses to…(drum roll, please)…questions about credit and debt. We as Americans are carrying much more household debt than we were in 2000, for example. So it's no surprise that the CAC is getting these kinds of calls. You're taking away your security blanket for the future when you take on tons of debt. The first step is to face up to your debts. Take all your debts, write them down and total them up. After you throw up, you can begin coming up with a plan to deal with the situation. Stop using your credit cards in the interim. You didn't get into debt overnight, so don't expect that you'll be out of it overnight. If you can conquer your debts in 30 months, that's a cycle most people can live with. It's when you go longer than 30 months that things get more difficult. Under those circumstances, you should sit down with the folks at NFCC.org (The National Foundation for Credit Counseling) for free or low-cost advice.