The portions at the USA are insane. When I first saw the "large size" side drinks at fast foods I started laughing. In Europe the large size is equivalent to the US Medium.

This is also the case in restaurants. I get it that many people pack left over to go, but the portions served are comically large. For someone with broken "I am full" sensor, it is easy to consume the whole portion at once, and then get a dessert.

I find that in most US restaurants the portions are a bit small and I need the desert to fill me up. People always remark about how much I eat though. Most of them completely fail to notice that I eat only at meals, so even though it seems like I'm eating a lot, over the course of a day I'm getting no more than them. However most of my calories are not empty snacks (even counting the desert).

I cook most of my meals at home though, which allows me to get enough without needing desert every meal. Plus my cooking tastes better since it is real flavor not added sugar/salt.

>When I first saw the "large size" side drinks at fast foods I started laughing. In Europe the large size is equivalent to the US Medium.

Depending on where exactly you were, this is the experience of a lot of Americans compared to the sizes from their childhoods. A lot of places missed the point on Super-Size Me and just renamed their sizes to eliminate extra-larges around that time. So a 16oz shifted from being medium to being small.