Food Urges Are Not Normal

Key Takeaways

• Food noise, also known as food cravings or food urges, refers to obsessive or intrusive thoughts about food.

• People are most likely to experience cravings for unhealthy, highly-caloric foods, which generally contain a lot of fat, sugar, starch, and/or salt.

• Although almost everyone has experienced a food craving at least once in their lives, research has found that some people experience far more cravings than others.

• Food cravings can lead to weight gain, and research has found that people who experience more food cravings are more likely to be obese.

• Medications known as GLP-1 RAs have been found to decrease food cravings, which in turn reduces the amount of willpower needed to avoid overeating unhealthy snacks.

What is “food noise”?

The term “food noise” refers to obsessive or intrusive thoughts related to food. Scientifically, these are known as “food-related intrusive thoughts,” or FRITs. These can also be known by other names, such as food cravings or food urges.

When a person is experiencing food noise, it’s difficult to stop thinking about food. Often, this is related to a particular food. You might find yourself craving your favorite potato chips. You know that you shouldn’t eat them, because they’re not healthy. They’re high in calories, salt, and saturated fat. You try your best not to think about the chips, but you just can’t get them out of your mind.

Eventually, you’re almost certain to go grab those chips. The craving is just too strong to resist. You might be able to eat just a few. However, many people find themselves unable to stop eating the chips once they start. Soon, they’ve eaten the whole bag.

Different people crave different specific foods. Instead of potato chips, it might be something else, like candy or chocolate. Research has found that men are more likely to crave salty or savory foods, while women are more likely to crave sweet foods. 

Although the specific foods differ, most food cravings are for unhealthy foods. These are known as “highly-caloric, highly-palatable foods,” meaning that they contain a lot of energy (calories), and they also taste very good to most people. Researchers have found that highly palatable foods are generally high in fat, sugar, starch, and/or salt. These foods appear to create a pleasure response in the brain that can cause cravings for the food.

Food noise does not affect everyone equally

Almost everyone has experienced food noise at some point in their life. It’s rare to find someone who has never had a craving. However, research has found that not everyone experiences food noise equally. For some people, cravings are much more frequent than for others.

Researchers are still working to learn why some people experience more food urges than others. It appears that imbalances in the levels of hormones related to hunger and satiety, like leptin and ghrelin, may lead to cravings. 

In addition, certain foods have been found to create a response in the brain that’s very similar to addiction. They cause high levels of activity in certain circuits in the brain that are related to appetite, pleasure, and motivation for food. Some people’s brains are more likely than others to develop high levels of activity in these circuits, and this can lead to more frequent cravings for highly-caloric foods.

Food noise’s negative impacts

Food noise can make it harder to maintain a healthy body weight. People who have obesity are significantly more likely to experience frequent cravings for highly-caloric foods than are people who are at a healthy body weight. 

Food cravings are often very strong. Most people are aware that they shouldn’t eat unhealthy foods. They know that this is likely to cause them to gain weight, as well as being bad for their overall health. However, when a food craving is strong, it becomes very difficult to resist it. Many people end up giving in to their strong food urges, even though they know they shouldn’t.

In studies of people’s reasons for eating unhealthy snacks, “temptation” is by far the most frequently reported reason. In other words, people usually eat unhealthy snacks because they experience a craving for them. Despite a person’s good intentions, they end up giving in to the food noise they’re experiencing, and eating the food that they’re craving.

If this happens only occasionally, it may not be an issue. However, for those who experience more frequent cravings, the consumption of these unhealthy foods adds up to a significant caloric intake. This is very likely to lead to weight gain. When a person goes on a weight loss journey and tries to stop eating unhealthy snacks, their cravings for those foods may actually increase in the short term, making weight loss more challenging.

The second most frequent reason that people report eating unhealthy snacks is that they’re eating in response to feeling bored or stressed. This is known as “emotional eating,” and it can also make achieving a healthy body weight more difficult. 

How do GLP-1 RAs impact food noise and cravings?

For people experiencing high levels of food noise, a class of medications known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1 RAs, may be helpful. These medications mimic a natural hormone in the body known as glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. They have many different actions throughout the body, including slowing down emptying of the stomach after eating (which keeps you feeling full for longer) and helping to keep blood sugar under control.

GLP-1 RAs also affect the brain. They act on brain areas related to appetite and desire for food, which reduces food cravings. As a result, people taking GLP-1 RAs often report experiencing far less food noise than they experienced before they started taking the medication. In fact, research has found that GLP-1 RAs significantly reduce food cravings.

By reducing food noise, GLP-1 RAs reduce the amount of willpower needed to achieve a healthy level of caloric intake. People taking GLP-1 RAs experience far less strong urges to eat unhealthy, highly-caloric foods. As a result, it becomes easier to make healthy food choices, and to avoid snacking between meals. In turn, this makes it far easier to lose excess weight, and to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

GLP-1 RAs are prescription medications. This means that you can’t simply buy them on your own at the pharmacy – they’re only available with a doctor’s prescription. You’ll need to visit a qualified physician, who will determine whether a GLP-1 RA would be a safe and effective option for you. 

Although eating fewer unhealthy snacks can make a significant difference in a person’s weight and overall health, it’s not the only thing that’s needed for achieving a healthy body weight. It’s also important to develop a healthy eating plan with appropriate portions of healthy foods, and to create an exercise plan to get the right amount of physical activity.

It’s certainly possible to achieve these things on your own, but many people find it very helpful to have support from professionals like health coaches and physical trainers. This is why all of our Optimum Plus medical weight loss clients get access to their own health coach, who they can contact through our custom NOVI app. This level of support can be the key to helping you make sustainable changes to a person's lifestyle in a person’s weight loss journey, helping them to finally achieve a healthy body weight.