It's not just the USA. Vietnam and Turkiye use lots of sugar in non-traditional foods while Thailand has included palm sugar in even their traditional foods for as long as I can remember.
Yes, though American portion sizes are huge as others noted.
I remember some report about how Mexico had a very different rate of obesity from the USA until some of the free trade agreements kicked in and multinational food companies with USA branches started getting a bigger share in the Mexican market, ending up with the Mexican diet resembling more of the USA diet.
Interesting! I have no evidence but I got the impression that Turkiye's sugar industry (the richest man owns Ülker, a confectionary conglomerate) was unnaturally large and not always that way...
