The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

The worldwide obesity epidemic is a marker of the international stress epidemic discussed in our previous chapters, and of the attendant lifestyle challenges endemic to our modern era: lack of time, lack of exercise, growing insecurity, lack of family connection, loss of community, and erosion of the social network. There are many aspects of life that drive people to follow unhealthy diets and engage in self-harming habits, the main culprits being emotional pain, stress, and social dislocation. And as we have seen, compulsive overeating—like all addictions—is itself a response to stress and a way of soothing the impacts of trauma. “It’s not what you are eating,” someone cleverly said, “it’s what’s eating you.” Stress induces people to “choose” unhealthy foods and to put on weight in the wrong places, promoting disease. It also depletes the serotonin/contentment circuits, shifting the brain’s functioning toward the short-term, dopamine-fueled pleasure