What is food noise and how to quiet it
Key Takeaways
The term “food noise” refers to obsessive or intrusive thoughts about food.
“Head hunger” refers to eating for reasons other than the body’s physical need for energy or nutrients.
Some people experience more food noise than others. People who are overweight tend to experience more food noise than those of normal weight.
Food noise makes it more difficult to avoid overeating and eating unhealthy foods.
To reduce food noise, it’s often helpful to develop alternative methods for dealing with uncomfortable emotions like stress, sadness, or boredom, which you can use instead of reaching for food to manage these feelings. Over time, the cravings will lessen.
There are prescription medications available that can help to reduce food noise by acting on regions of the brain that control appetite, cravings, and the sensation of reward or pleasure related to food. These are known as GLP-1 RAs. Examples include semaglutide, liraglutide, and dulaglutide.
What is food noise?
At some point in your life, you’ve almost certainly experienced obsessive or food-related intrusive thoughts (FRITs), colloquially known as “food noise.”
For example, you might have a craving for a particular snack. Even though you know you shouldn’t eat it because it’s not healthy, you may find it difficult to stop thinking about that particular food. Thoughts about that food keep popping into your head, even though you try to ignore them. This is known as “food noise.”
People experiencing a lot of food noise may feel compelled to open food-delivery apps regularly, even though they know they shouldn’t order the food they’re craving. They may find themselves thinking about their next meal as soon as they finish their previous one – or even while they’re still eating. Many people who experience high levels of food noise report that they think about food all day, every day.
What does head hunger sound like?
The term “head hunger” is similar to food noise. When experiencing head hunger, a person is craving particular foods for reasons other than their body’s physical needs for energy and nutrients.
We often have emotional associations with certain foods – we may associate them with comfort, love, or other positive emotions. Because of this, when people feel a negative emotion like stress or sadness, this may trigger the desire to use food to feel better. By consuming a food that’s associated with positive emotions, there may be a temporary lift in mood. This is known as emotional eating.
In many cases, the foods that people use for comfort are calorically dense and have very few nutrients. They’re often highly processed foods that are sugary or fatty – things like cookies, candy, or chips. In fact, research has found that being in a negative emotional state often triggers cravings for sugary and/or fatty foods.
If emotional eating occurs only once in a while, then it may not be a major issue. However, it can easily become a habit. Each time a person reaches for a comfort food and gets a temporary mood boost, this strengthens the brain’s association between that food and positive emotions, making the craving for that food even stronger the next time a negative emotion hits.
When emotional eating becomes a habit, then this often leads to consuming more food than the body needs. This is likely to lead to weight gain over time.
Food noise and willpower
Many people have been told that weight loss is simply about willpower. The idea is that a person who’s overweight just needs to resist the temptation to overeat. If they can’t do this, it’s assumed that they lack willpower.
This traditional approach ignores the impact of food noise on a person’s level of craving. When someone is experiencing a lot of food-related intrusive thoughts, it takes a lot of effort to resist the temptation to give into the craving.
Those who are experiencing more food noise need significantly more willpower to avoid reaching for unhealthy foods than other people do. Even if everyone had the same amount of willpower, those who have more food-related intrusive thoughts would still end up reaching for unhealthy foods more often, and would be more likely to be overweight as a result.
Do some people experience food noise more than others?
Everyone experiences food noise at times. For example, when a person is very hungry, they’re almost certain to experience food noise. No one is immune to this. However, some people do experience more food noise than others.
People with eating disorders often experience a lot of food noise. This is likely to be because the body is reacting to their chronic underconsumption of food – when the body’s needs for food are not being met, then various factors are secreted that cause the person to crave food. Thus, even though a person with an eating disorder may be underweight and experiencing deficiencies of certain nutrients, they’re probably also thinking about food nearly all the time.
However, people who are eating plenty of food can also experience high levels of food noise. The brain is very good at triggering us to crave certain foods. Earlier in human history, this may have motivated people to seek out foods that would provide them with a lot of needed calories, such as fatty or sugary food sources. Since these foods were relatively rare for most of human history, this would have been beneficial. However, now that such foods are constantly available, the natural craving for them tends to lead to overeating and weight gain.
Research has found that people who are overweight experience more food cravings than those who are of normal weight. The circuits in their brain that lead them to crave particular foods are more active, and they may have developed a strong association between certain foods and emotional comfort. As a result of their stronger cravings, they find it harder to resist the temptation to consume these foods.
How to manage food noise
Although food noise makes it difficult to avoid reaching for unhealthy foods, it’s not impossible to reduce the number of food-related intrusive thoughts that you experience.
The first step is to gain an awareness of your eating patterns. It’s often helpful to keep a food journal for this purpose. Each time you eat anything, you write down what you ate, how hungry you were just before you ate, and what emotions you were feeling just before you ate. This can help to identify patterns. For example, maybe when you feel stressed, you often reach for cookies.
The next step is to find alternative, healthier ways to manage those emotions. For example, when you’re feeling stressed, you could go for a short walk, do some deep breathing exercises or meditation, put on a song you like and dance to it, or call a friend.
At first, even when you use your new healthier way of coping, you may find yourself continuing to experience cravings for the unhealthy food that you used to eat in this situation. This is because the brain is excellent at learning patterns, and if your pattern is to eat cookies when feeling stressed, then your brain is cued into that pattern. However, over time, your brain will learn the new pattern, and the food noise will lessen.
Many people find it helpful to “press the pause button” before they eat. When they’re about to reach for any type of food, they take a moment to consider whether they’re physically hungry, or whether they’re eating for other reasons. If the desire for food isn’t related to your body’s need for energy and nutrients, then you can choose a different way of coping with whatever it is that you’re feeling. If your body really does need food, then try to choose something healthy that will meet your body’s nutritional needs.
Hormonal regulation of food noise
Some people are surprised to learn that there are also prescription medications that are effective at reducing food noise. These are known as GLP-1 RAs, a group that includes semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic, Rybelsus), liraglutide (Saxenda, Victoza), and dulaglutide (Trulicity).
These medications mimic a hormone known as glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. This hormone is naturally produced in the body after eating. GLP-1 RAs have a variety of effects throughout the body. They act in the digestive system to slow down emptying of the stomach, and they also influence the body’s production of hormones that control blood sugar.
GLP-1 RAs also act directly in the brain, and this is how they reduce food noise. They modulate activity in parts of the brain related to appetite, cravings for foods, and the feeling of pleasure or reward associated with eating. By quieting down activity in these areas, food noise is greatly reduced. This is one way that these medications help to promote weight loss.
GLP-1 RAs are only available with a doctor’s prescription. You can’t buy them on your own, but need to consult with a doctor first. This is to make sure that the medication will be safe and effective for you. After visiting a doctor and considering your various options for weight loss, if you and your doctor agree that a GLP-1 RA is a good option for you, then you’ll receive your prescription.
Although GLP-1 RAs are effective for weight loss, they’re most effective when used alongside a healthy weight loss plan. If you’re using some of the other methods for reducing food noise, taking a GLP-1 RA will help you to resist the strong cravings and develop healthier habits. You’ll also want to make sure you’re including plenty of exercise, which is beneficial for both physical and mental health as well as weight loss.
Having the support of health professionals, like health coaches and nutritionists, can make a huge difference in a person’s ability to make lifestyle changes, overcome food noise, and successfully achieve a healthier body weight. This is why our NOVI Optimum Plus medical weight loss program includes not only treatment with a GLP-1 RA (if appropriate), but also support from other health professionals.