What causes 'food noise'?

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I have noticed more and more chat online about weight loss injections this past year, and after having a nosey around, became interested in learning more about it.
In doing so I have naturally become familiar with the term 'food noise', and how this impacts people's relationship with food and satiation. I also am aware that the GLP 1's dramatically reduce this.
So I understand what it is, but not quite how it comes about in the first place.

It seems like a good thing that we have more awareness of this now, and how it may help people who experience it to discuss and understand it (as well as those who don't), as opposed to previous attitudes which emphasised only dieting.

What I am still a bit puzzled by is why food noise affects people in the first place, and is there something which triggers that? Or is it something some of us are genetically linked to from birth? Like what is essentially different for someone who can't stop the sensation of hunger compared to someone who has never had to think about it?

Do you need to lose weight?

Do you have snack urges?

Do you feel hungry?

Addiction.

The food noise feeling I get is exactly the same as the feeling I used to get when I wanted a cigarette, or when I was seeking my next fix (this was a long time ago).

It's literally food addiction. I can only speak for myself and people I know who've been through similar, but everyone I know who has experienced food noise has also experienced some level of disordered eating and/or an unhealthy eating pattern (comfort eating for instance). It stems from an already unhealthy relationship with food.

“Food noise” isn’t hunger. It’s not the sensation of hunger. It’s the continual thinking about food, what to eat, what not to eat, calorie amounts, working out if you can have x y z food, getting stressed about whether or not you can/should eat it, then thinking “sod it” and eating whatever it is and more. Then feeling shit that you didn’t manage to control your eating, leading to giving up and just eating any old crappy food…. Etc etc etc. round and round.

For me, I think it comes from having food restricted as an overweight child and then being put on a calorie controlled diet as a young teen. That made me miserable, it didn’t work, and made me overly focussed on calorie counting and constantly thinking about had I eaten too much.

Hormones generally. Signals within the endocrine system - leptin, grehlin, insulin, stomach fullness. Humans differ in the receptors they have and the amount of hormones released and when and why.

Have a look on YouTube at the endocrine system and cell signalling.

(Note that hormones are not just sexual… oestrogen etc are just one form of hormone. Hormones also affect metabolism, hunger, tiredness etc)

We talk about food noise a lot in my ADHD group. It's a dopamine hit.

I suppose just food being so nice.
When I see cake it says “eat me!”
Food’s everywhere. So, it’s noisy.
Marketing, cooking shows, shops.
We’re overly concerned with eating.

I think it’s different for everyone. I have had a very normal relationship with food over my life but in peri but certain types of stress and weather and health makes me fixate on food. Other types of stress makes me
stop eating.

eg this week I tried to do a healthy eating week, Mon- Thurs I ate healthier things but non stop. I couldn’t stop thinking about food, what to have, when to have it etc. It was healthy choices mostly but a billion calories worth. Then it burned out and today I had 2 packets of crisps and an apple all day. Fell off the healthy wagon but also had zero appetite.

It’s really hard to explain, the cold sets me off as does planning meals. When work is going well though I don’t eat much at all. If my brain is busy I don’t hear any food noise. If it’s bad it’s all I think about.

Thanks for the replies.
I am curious as to whether some of us might be more predisposed to food noise or is there often an event early on that might trigger it.

I used to suffer from health anxiety a long time ago, and spent many years preoccupied with my body's signals and sensations, although this was largely what might be called OCD now. Not exactly the same impulse, but I have never worked out why I developed that and if something predisposed me to it. It was certainly a kind of hyper vigilance. I could not switch it off.

So it may be a combination or a variety of reasons - hormonal, addiction, trauma.
I have heard many people suggesting overly processed foods, although it still doesn't explain why some are afflicted and some not.

I’m slim (goodness knows how) but was a hungry kid (massive family and competition for food / treats).
I think about food almost all the time - even if I am eating a superb meal I think ‘when can I eat this again’? Or that I’ve had a huge meal so how does that fit across the weeks intake.
I am going for a lunch tomorrow in my favourite restaurant- I am already thinking what I should have for dinner.

husband and kids see food as fuel - I mean, the kids will cane a selection box for breakfast on Christmas morning but they also have not finished the miniature heroes / celebrations / after 8’s from Christmas.

This is a good article on BBC about the myth of willpower and the "obesogenic environment" - basically food noise.

BBC News - Why some people really struggle to lose weight more than others - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2084q9079po

For me, food noise is a persistent, nagging ‘voice’ that puts an idea in my head and won’t take no for an answer. For example, I fancy a biscuit. The sensible part of me replies with: you don’t need one, you’re overweight, you need to cut down, you’ve just had lunch etc. The food noise voice doesn’t accept that and carries on whining for a biscuit. A bit like a toddler I suppose! This can go on for hours. Distraction doesn’t work. It’s always there.
WLI have helped a lot but not completely. It’s more manageable now and I have lost some weight but not loads like you hear about from others on the jabs. I think I must have a particularly strong willed food noise voice!
I remember always being hungry for treats as a child - these were restricted by my DM as I was an overweight child (I don’t blame her for doing this, she was trying her best for me) - so I sneaked biscuits etc (always sweet things) - and as an adult I have a dreadful, insatiable sweet tooth. I can restrict portion sizes, resist crisps, nuts, cheese, alcohol but chocolate is my nemesis. It’s like an addiction. This is what I consider food noise.

For me, food noise is constantly thinking about food. It’s more like intrusive thoughts than addiction though. I’m not chasing a high or pleasure from eating the food itself, and it can be sparked by food I’m not even particularly fond of. It’s more of a compulsion. I think about doing something and can’t distract myself from the idea until it’s done. I do suspect I have OCD tendencies in other areas of life, so possibly it is an extension of that.

I’ve spent years being told it was willpower, mental health issues etc. While I believe it might be linked to OCD for me, the fact that Mounjaro was able to literally turn it off like a switch suggests to me that it is a condition that needs medical treatment rather than therapy alone.

I have food noise, it’s worse when I’m at home but more manageable at work when I take my food in with me. It’s the reason I’m overweight. The only time it disappears is when I’m deep into a weight loss programme - like weight watchers etc but it eventually comes back. Is there an alternative to weight loss jabs to curtail the food noise - has anyone found that??!

Processed foods affect the hunger hormones released, satiety, intestinal bulk etc. There are psychological reasons for food noise too but a lot of it is physical signals - and some people genetically have more sensitivity and specific triggers, hence why families are often thin or fat. And it’s why weight loss injections work for most people… GLP1 is a HORMONE…. The jabs mimic the hormone that indicates to the body that it’s full and doesn’t need more food which stops the brain from releasing more hormones that make you say ‘ I need to eat’.

My understanding is that it is related to Dopamine and the dopamine hit you get from food. This is generally related to ultra-processed foods as these are designed to be highly palatable so that you want to go back for more.

Some people are more genetically pre-disposed to chasing the dopamine hit than others.

I think also food noise occurs when people use food to deal with their emotions.
Its not about hunger, its suppressing uncomfortable emotions down with the comfort of food and that short term dopamine hit.

Refined sugar and UPFs, imo. If it were biological, it would have been present since the dawn of humanity. "Food noise" is a marketing strategy for WLI. Obesity is a modern, Western issue.

Of course, for those who have "food noise," it is real, and the effects are devastating for their mental and physical health, and if WLI are being used safely and are helping people combat addiction, I'm all for it, the dangers of WLI, for peo[ple who are genuinely obese are outweighed by far by the dangers of obesity but it's disingenuous to suggest it is an unavoidable biological issue that we have no control over.

If we want to target the core issue, we need to be pointing fingers at food manufacturing giants, not relying on medications that have potentially deadly side effects.

I think "food noise" is something that is programmed into us since caveman times. Before farming, when humans were hunter-gatherers, it was seriously a matter of life and death if you ate or not, and it was normal to feast when there was a glut of food, to lay down fat to see you through the winter when food was scarce and harder to find. The trouble is, that instinct is still there, even though our fridges, cupboards and the shops are full of food, often high-calorie, low-nutrient stuff. We are also instinctively drawn to sweet foods, as they are the high-sugar foods that make us fat, which is the survival mechanism.

Unfortunately our lifestyles have changed dramatically, even from 50 years ago, more of us drive or ride everywhere, rather than walk, many jobs are sedentary, children in particular are massively less active and parents are scared to let them outside. But our brains still behave as though we're out hunting bison and gathering wild berries.

My only comfort is that in the event of catastrophe I would survive a siege a lot longer than a fashionably skinny individual.

I'm not sure. But I know I never had it until I had to go onto anti-depressants. They are famous (among patients, not doctors) for creating food noise. Constant carb cravings. All day long, a little urge - not even a voice, just a bodily demand for more carbs, more sugar, more carbs. It's never ever satiated by eating the carbs. I put on 4lbs in the first month of taking ADs and the GP just sneered at me when I said it was a problem and said, 'stop snacking.' She had no understanding or sympathy. I went from a life long healthy weight to overweight - at one point very overweight.

One thing I noticed when I finally got put on the medicatiom I actually needed - ADHD not anti-depressants - was the food noise stopped immediately. Overnight. I am back to my normal eating patterns from pre-AD days.

AFAIK, ADHD medication increases dopamine levels to normal, so maybe people with food noise have very low dopamine. Many people on ADs need more dopamine but the medication actually creates more serotonin. So my guess is that it is linked to hormones and neurotransmitters, and how effectively they are working in the body and brain.

There is increasing evidence that our mental health is hugely linked to our gut health. This was already being talked about, but one piece of anecdata I find really interesting is that a lot of peole who started injecting weightloss drugs said their IBS issues vanished overnight too. I hope the pharma companies who make the injections research this, so that IBS sufferers can have access to a version of the drug too.

And this is interesting, due to the previously held belief that food addiction or weight gain was only behavioural. I think it's amazing how we are learning more about that now, thanks to the GLP1's. Whatever the future of the drug, it has opened up a much needed discourse.

The thing that intrigues me about UPF's (and I believe they are problematic) is why some will have the issue and others not.

For example, a tasty white crusty loaf. Made the old way with just a couple of ingredients, makes lively toast with peanut butter, cheese, what have you. This isn't UPF, although it is less nutritious than wholegrain.
I wonder why one person feels the compulsion to eat the whole loaf, yet another is satisfied with one slice.
So, one person can't control the urge to eat more of it whilst another one is happy with a small piece. What makes these people different?

What goes on here is interesting, and it makes sense why some people have to avoid carbs, etc. I am no scientist so I don't have the answer, but I know people who are a healthy weight and eat all sorts of carbs - so I guess it's complicated.

lovely toast* not lively

I also am not a scientist; my observation that UPFs are responsible for food noise is based on the global correlation between the rise in UPFs and obesity. Unless we all, across the entire western hemisphere, collectively and simultaneously lost our willpower, something other than biology is going on.

I suppose the difference is down to individual make-up, i.e., hormone levels, gut binome etc. The same as some people can use opiates recreationally for years and then just walk away from them, whereas others develop a serious addiction after just a few doses.

I think everyone has "food noise" to some degree, it's just that some people are better at distracting themselves from it than others, not because of any personal failing, just because people are all different, the same as some people are better at motivating themselves to mop the floors while others procrastinate on MN for hours

My mum is tiny; she always has been. She eats once a day in day-to-day life, almost always home-cooked, carb-heavy meals, followed by a chocolate biscuit, because she is "too busy" to remember to eat lunch or breakfast, but give her a day out or a holiday, and the entire trip is planned wholly around when, where, and what she can eat. We're going to the lakes in August, and she is already planning what snacks she can take and when she will buy them. Whereas, I have had issues with food for as long as I can remember and swing between extreme restriction and uncontrolled binging.

I could never be so busy that I would forget to eat, I could, depending on my food, choose not to eat for days at a time, or I could eat everything and anything in sight, whether I enjoy it or not.

Whichever cycle I am in, food is always on my mind, forgetting about it is not possible, but I don't give a fuck what I will be eating in August, I don't even know what type of food I will like in August, as that changes on a weekly basis too. Not long ago, I lived almost entirely on sugar-free yoghurt and jelly; now the mere thought of jelly makes me feel ill. I do not like jelly until next month, when I can only eat jelly.

I don't know exactly what changes in me where I can sometimes resist food to the point of starvation, but sometimes cannot physically stop myself eating until I am physically ill from it but I have noticed when I am restricting the food I do allow myself to eat in tiny portions are usually whole foods, lean meats and veg and a bit of fruit. When I'm binging, I tend to reach for white bread and/or fizzy jelly sweets and eating a vegetable wouldn't occur to me, so I do think it is linked to the types of food I eat.

Is the food noise voice telling you to eat, in any way related to the critical (self sabotaging) inner voice that many people suffer from?

If the WLI have silenced the food noise voice, has it also helped to silence the critical inner voice and has your mental health improved as a result?

" If it were biological, it would have been present since the dawn of humanity. "

Maybe it has been, but only recently has food been so cheap and plentiful.