BP gas stations that are not bound by restrictive contracts are rushing to switch brands, Katherine Yung reports, as consumers boycott the company responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Abdel Berry, who owns three BP stations, has already converted his Ypsilanti, Mich., and Detroit stores to the Sunoco brand. "It's either change or go out of business," he tells Yung. Other stations owners, who are under multiyear contracts that force them to stick with BP, are feeling consumers' ire even though they are independently owned. Fren Asmar, who lowered gas prices at …

If Gregory Warner's report from the front lines of relationship management in the healthcare industry is to be believed, empathy with the customer is in and voice jail is out. Warner takes us on a tour of a Convergys call center in Kentucky -- "a sea of head-setted heads in 500 cubicles" -- where empathy coaches "roam the aisles and swoop down on agents when they flounder." It's apparently all a result of health care reform, which is making shopping for health insurance more like shopping for say, a health club. All of a sudden, rapport …

All the proposals to get a grip on the national obesity epidemic -- from taxes on sodas to printed calorie counts in restaurant menus -- may be for naught without educating consumers on the nutritional value and proper consumption levels of food, Alan Bjerga reports. Only one of every eight adult Americans knows how many calories he or she should consume in a day, according to a new survey taken for the International Food Information Council Foundation, whose educational arm includes representatives from General Mills, Kraft and Mars. Nearly two-thirds of Americans have recently changed eating habits, mainly …

Could be, if Amy Martinez' report has legs, that all those former Curves members are running for the hills, dales and flats. Her story leads with Alice Lawson who, seeing troublesome economic times ahead, dropped a gym membership in early 2009 and took up running instead. Last month, she completed her first half-marathon. In fact, the number of marathon finishers rose nearly 10% between 2008 and 2009 to 467,000, according to nonprofit Running USA, and half-marathon finishers jumped 24% from 900,000 in 2008 to 1.1 million in 2009. "Running appears to be not recession-proof, but at …

If you live on the sweltering East Coast of the U.S., the most you probably feel like exerting yourself today is by jumping into a cool lake but, as fate would have it, the muses of re-reporting this morning are focused on exercise and diet. First, Richard Gibson reports that the number of Curves franchised fitness centers "for women only" has plummeted from 7,748 at the beginning of 2007 to about 5,208. Only 35 outlets opened in the U.S. last year while about 1,000 closed. Curves president Mike Raymond says some of the departed owners came …