Even the College sports, not just Pro sports, are huge here - they have hundreds of unis and even the crumby ones have a basketball team who will get televised sooner or later. It's not hard to see why every Olympics they bulldoze everyone in Basketball. It's probably this sports fanatacism which helps counteract the junk food. Speaking of which...
...when they were teaching about moderation, Uncle Sam must've been out back. Food servings are much bigger, the grease is everywhere and you just have to wonder how they live past 40 (the pollution from all those cars and crime doesn't help either):p. They have a kazillion different fast food joints just to make sure that noone is tempted to eat at home (works for me :)).
In Sac? Same as ours really, from what I can tell so far. No snow, although you travel an hour to Tahoe and it's there (so I have heard...).
In general, don't bring your family here unless you are all ju jitsu experts and Dad works for a Kevlar factory. Ok, a slight exaggeration but blame it on the socio-economic divide, the gun culture etc - but it's just not as safe as it is in Oz (IN GENERAL). We all know in Sydney to stay away from certain areas late at night - e.g Ultimo. Well, in the US, those "certain areas" make up a big chunk of the cities, and often entire suburbs. Great place to visit though...
Outside of major metropolises like LA and New York, everyone drives. All the kids here have cars and the uni is like 60% car park. They do have public transport but I guess they just have the car culture ingrained. It's a shame cos it means students spend more money because of gas, and also there's more pollution and car fatalities than at home.