- More than half of Americans who are living with obesity or overweight can’t stop thinking about food.
- Food noise helps explain constant, intrusive thoughts about eating.
- Experts say there are ways to help ease food noise.
Since she was a teenager, 32-year-old Sophia Pena has experienced persistent thoughts about food.
“In my head, I thought it meant I was just weak; I was gluttonous. I’d wonder what’s wrong with me. Why am I always this concerned about my next meal?” she told Healthline. “I might not even need food immediately, but it’s always there…it’s like background noise.”
Throughout her life, the constant thoughts about food ebbed and flowed, and they often intensified during stressful times or when she was trying to lose weight.
“I had to think about the calories or what I’m going to eat. Is it healthy enough, not healthy enough? Am I going to need to justify that meal later?” she said. “It also happened early on when I was pregnant. Is this too much for the baby? It’s always there.”
While she was aware of the persistent thoughts, sharing them with her doctor a little over a year ago helped her identify the intrusive thoughts as “food noise.”
What is food noise?
While there is no clinical definition of the term, some experts refer to “food noise” as a heightened or persistent manifestation of food cue reactivity.
This can lead to intrusive thoughts about food and maladaptive eating behaviors.
“Food noise is part of the pathophysiology driving obesity in many people, perhaps similar to how we understand some of the neurobiochemical adversity in mental health disorders,” Karl Nadolsky, DO, a clinical endocrinologist and obesity specialist at Holland Hospital and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Michigan State University, told Healthline.
Food noise affects many people
Pena found relief when her doctor explained more about food noise and that others who are challenged with weight management often experience food noise, too.
“It’s relieving to know that there is a term for it because it kind of makes you feel weak-minded and that you’re just letting it control you. [In fact], I’m not choosing to think about this. I’d rather not think about this,” she said.
One study found that 57% of people living with overweight or obesity experience continuous and disruptive thoughts about food, yet only 12% are familiar with the term “food noise.”
Nadolsky finds this to be accurate with the patients he treats, as does Katherine H. Saunders, MD, an obesity physician at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of FlyteHealth.
“The majority of individuals with obesity, especially those who have tried different strategies to treat their obesity, can tell you that food noise is a real part of their disease,” Saunders told Healthline.
What causes food noise?
Because obesity is a heterogeneous disease, Saunders said different people experience different symptoms at different times.
Saunders explained that increases in hunger and food thoughts can happen because of dysregulated hormonal pathways that result from obesity itself and metabolic adaptation that happens when a person with obesity loses weight.
Medication can help quiet food noise
Until Pena learned about food noise, she assumed she lacked willpower and felt shame about her weight. Over the years, she tried to lose weight with various methods including regular exercise, the Keto diet, and attending a weight loss clinic.
Each of these worked to some degree in helping her reach a healthy weight, but then she would regain it.
“But even when I was given a plan and able to stay on track…that noise was still in the back of my mind,” said Pena.
At one point, her doctor prescribed her a weight loss medication that helped stop food noise.
“It didn’t tell me not to eat, it just reminded me not to worry about it,” she said. “[You] think it’s just food, but no, it was something that I was constantly thinking about. It was annoying. I didn’t choose it to be there, but it was there all the time.”
Anti-obesity medications like GLP-1s are effective in helping with food noise, said Nadolsky.
“We are very fortunate to now have a variety of medications in our armamentarium to treat obesity with benefits on the subjective, food noise, along with surgery,” he said.
Semaglutide, the active ingredient in anti-obesity medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, helps people feel full and empty their stomachs more slowly. It also activates receptors for the hormone GLP-1, which are found in parts of the brain connected to motivation and reward.
Both these functions might explain why these medications help quiet food noise.
“I would view food noise as a symptom of someone’s disease or a result of someone’s body fighting weight loss, so managing food noise is a part of treating obesity effectively,” said Saunders.
Nadolsky agreed and noted that providers should have empathy for patients who are challenged by food noise when approaching their medical care.
Learn more about how to get GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy from vetted and trusted online sources here:
Natural ways to help manage food noise
In addition to medication, Nadolsky said nutritional efforts may help with food noise, particularly minimizing processed food and focusing on high quality, “volumetric,” whole foods. He suggested vegetables, beans, legumes, pulses, fruit, and high fiber grains, as well as low fat protein and quality fat from nuts, seeds, fish, and plants like olives or avocados.
For Pena, listening to music or podcasts has helped her drown out food noise.
“I don’t physically feel hungry, I’m more mentally thinking of food, so I needed to quiet the thoughts,” she said. “[Doing] something while listening…gave me a moment to just quiet or focus on something else and help me release that obsession in that moment, whatever is triggering me to have those thoughts.”
Make a plan to quiet food noise
Four months ago, she gave birth to twins, making her a mother of four. While she plans on giving her body time to heal, she eventually will focus on getting to a healthy weight again. When food noise interferes, Pena plans to lean on music again.
However, she knows that this will be one part of a bigger plan for her weight and health.
While finding various ways to ease food noise as Pena did is healthy, Saunders said managing food noise won’t end the obesity epidemic, which reveals that more than 100 million adults live with obesity, and more than 22 million adults live with severe obesity.
“Medically treating the underlying cause of the food noise with dietary strategies, behavioral techniques, obesity medications, and/or metabolic surgery is the way to address the epidemic,” she said.
