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?

I could have written this!
I hover around 2 or 3kg overweight and the only way I can control it is by eating pretty much the same every day, not having any treat foods in the house or buying crisps or chocolates when I’m out. I cook from scratch and rarely eat UPFs.

I’ve always felt slightly out of control around food and it takes a huge amount of conscious effort to not eat but there is always that chattering going on in the back of my mind.

I do think I have some degree of Au/ADHD so the links to that make sense to me.

Same. DH and I were born in the 50s so grew up on home grown and home cooked food and no snacks. The reason I think we are still the same size in old age as in our 20s is that we never changed our eating habits much. Still eat largely home made food, small portions and no snacks between meals. I actually like to be ravenous at meal times because I love food and want to enjoy it. The old "don't eat that now it will spoil your dinner" is very true.

But food noise? I take that to mean thinking about food when it's not a meal time? I wonder whether it's the same thing that alcoholics or drug addicts have?

for me it's this like pp put it: "“Food noise” is 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."

I actually don't get hungry. If I'm not around food, I can literally go days without eating, no problem. Whereas naturally slim DH gets extremely hungry and grumpy just before mealtimes, then eats and then does not think about food until next meal. Whereas I think about food all the time and have to restrict myself all the time not to eat it all.

It's an addiction. And telling people to just eat less is like telling an alcoholic to have one drink only, or putting a gambling addict in the middle of a casino and telling them to gamble just a little - 'see, I can do a few games and walk away, what's the problem, just have some willpower!'

To me, that is ED behaviour, not food noise. If you get stressed about calories to the point where it interferes with your daily life and/or end up over- or under-eating because of it, you need an ED counsellor, not Mounjaro.

I do the calorie thing when my ED is not properly managed, but it is not what I would deem food noise. And I think I'm now understanding why people have started saying they can't control food noise. It's not food noise; it is a mental illness.

What can I have for dinner? How many calories is that? Oh no, if I eat that many calories, I can't eat anything else again until tomorrow. But I'm hungry, though, and it's all there is. Can I manage a 40-minute walk to the nearest fruit shop on my 30-minute lunch break? I could run; it'll burn more calories. I wonder how many? I should Google that. Fuck, it won't burn enough calories. I'll only be able to have a boiled egg for dinner if I do that. How much did I weigh again this morning? I could eat 200 calories a day less for a week to make up for it. Oh, look, there are digestives. I don't like digestive, though. How many calories are in Digestives? Only 150 cals for 2? If I eat 2 digestives and a cup of black coffee for lunch, I can have a spoon of ice cream after dinner. I'm really hungry, though. I don't like digestives. Fuck it, I'm eating the chips and ordering a chinese for dinner. I deserve to be fat anyway. I'm a greedy pig

If that is what your food noise is you need to ask your GP to refer you to an ED specialist.

I do get food noise sometimes, usually when my ED is under control, and I'm enjoying food. I think it is something everyone gets to different degrees, and it is different to hunger, but I do think it's been branded "food noise" and hyped up as something only certain people suffer from as a marketing strategy.

To me, food noise is constant niggling thoughts about food like, "What can I have for dinner tonight? Do I still have any chicken left? I might Google creamy chicken recipes. I think I fancy creamy chicken. No, stop, I need to work. Oh. that creamy chicken micromeal I got from M&S last week was nice. I might get that. Right, work now, no more food thoughts. Garlic bread, I should get some garlic bread to go with the creamy chicken. I really fancy some sweets. I wonder if the vending machine still has Fruitella. No, no fruitella, work. Do work. Stop thinking about food. You're not even hungry. I really do fancy something sweet. Right fine, I will go and get the fruitella, then I will work. I'm really looking forward to that creamy chicken tonight."

That’s actually really helpful.
I’ve come off the jabs and the food noise is back and weight is creeping back on. However, I have given up smoking, drugs and alcohol successfully so perhaps I can do the same with food. I think viewing it as an addiction rather than something else might actually help!

you need an ED counsellor, not Mounjaro.

Maybe. But I am on Mounjaro and it allows me to function like a normal human.

@Perrylobster it's so much harder with food though. You can avoid casinos, cigarettes and go tee-total. You can't go without food though.

I have dreadful food noise. However, I didn't know what it was until I started hearing people on WLI talk about how their food noise had stopped and it was like a light bulb moment - I think I'd assumed everyone had food noise but now I've realised they don't.

I literally can't stop thinking about food. If I don't know what I am having to eat next I feel stressed. If I know there are a pack of two cakes in the kitchen, there is absolutely no way I can only eat one. I've always thought I'm not particularly hungry in my stomach but I am hungry in my head. This is why diets/food that claim to make you feel fuller for longer etc don't really make any difference because my head will still tell me to eat, even if my stomach isn't particularly hungry. It has been a revelation that some people are just not that bothered about food and can take it or leave it. It's something that takes up a lot of my thinking and the reason why I would be on WLI if I could afford them as I think it is the only thing that will help me lose weight.

Just to add, my BMI is 27 so I wouldn't be entitled to get them. I think I am lucky/decent metabolism/whatever to not be heavier than I am because of how much I think about food.

When I am due on the food noise is almost intolerable, I cannot stop thinking about food and planning what thing I will eat next and stuffing it into my face. It pisses me off so much because it now (thanks to the perimenopause) lasts 10 days and I feel like I'm out of control. I think that if I didnt walk my dog so much I would be hugely overweight, as it is Ive got about a stone to lose.

It's the one thing that makes me want to try the injections, just to turn the bastard noise down.

Yep - corticosteroids disrupt the pituitary adrenal axis. This sends hormonal messengers to many places but especially impacts the thyroid and thyroid growth hormones. The thyroid in part controls metabolism - corticosteroids then also disrupt metabolism by altering glucose regulation (which is controlled by hormones) and create widespread hormonal imbalance after use.

This is down to Mccance and Widdowson! The mother and father of Dietetics!

They did incredible work on diet and nutrition during the war and dietitians still use their work today to help people with diet and weight. They designed rationing to be as nutritionally ideal as possible. And it worked.

According to my consultant endocrinologist, it’s hormones

This is me! In fact, I knew I'd replied to this thread without reading the rest of it and when I reread it and saw your post, I thought I had written it!
I'm so glad there are others who understand. I have thought until recently that I was going mad as I just couldn't stop. I was fine until my mid thirties and could eat what I liked without effect. However forties and reduced metabolism and medication that causes weight gain means it's all catching up with me now.

I don't think others who don't have food noise can possibly understand. They are like, well just don't eat it then. But, literally, if I know there is another one (or three) of something I can't think of anything else until I have had them all so I have just started thinking that I might as well eat them all straight away anyway because we all know I'm going to!

Diets aren't prepared for this. Diets tell you how to feel fuller for longer. For food noise people, we do care if we are full in our stomach, our brain and our mouth crave more.

I'm interested in the origins of food noise too OP. From own experience: I was overweight as a teen/early 20s, bulimic, obsessively interested in and afraid of food and on the pill. The origins of disordered eating for me were control (I had a controlling & abusive parent and I felt limited control over my own life), defiance (foods were restricted by that parent) trauma, grief and suppressing this great sadness and anxiety. I also had low self esteem and my behaviour around food and poor body image reinforced that.

Due to a number of factors I needed to sort out chronic hypoglycaemia and through that process slowly changed my relationship to food - first learning what benefitted my body & mood, then slowly relaxing and trusting and finally building on pleasure and enjoyment. I was on a whole journey during that time and also addressed my self esteem, mental health, chronic stress and anxiety. During this process I also came off hormonal birth control for good. It was a whole shedding and rebuilding and the result in my relationship with food was that it took on a completely different role and meaning day-to-day. I enjoy it, eat widely, don't restrict myself but listen to bodily cues.

Then when I became pregnant, it was like going back in time by a decade - I was obsessed by daydreams and constant thoughts of certain foods, felt all the old mistrust and hatred of my body returning, worrying about overeating, feeling guilt and frustration at my inability to override the compulsive thoughts. This lasted about 5months of the pregnancy and just as suddenly ended in the 3rd trimester.

I think there has to be a hormonal element to food noise and compulsive eating - the pill I used to take mimics a state of pregnancy in the body and until my late 20s I also had high androgen levels from chronic stress - which combined with low self esteem, CPTSD and an external locus of control for me created the conditions for that compulsive relationship.

@QueenStevie no you’re not alone! I regularly fall into the “well I might as well eat it now rather than having it play on my mind for the next two hours and then eat it anyway” trap! Sometimes eating it to get rid of it is the only solution…

Research suggests that UPFs actually alter your brain:

In a BBC documentary, Dr Chris van Tulleken ate 80 percent ultra-processed foods for a month – the same percentage as a fifth of the population eat, according to research. Over the four-week experiment, an activity scan of his brain showed areas responsible for reward linked with areas that drive repetitive, automatic behaviour. “These were connections that weren’t there before”, he said, adding it is a similar response to that expected of someone taking addictive drugs, such as alcohol or cigarettes. The changes lasted for more than six weeks after the experiment ended.

The above image (left) shows van Tulleken’s existing brain connections in blue. New connections, in red, were made during a month of eating a diet high in ultra-processed foods. On the right is a 3D representation showing the new connections made during the experiment. The larger area at the front of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is known for reward-based decision-making, and the small area at the back, the cerebellum, is involved with automatic behaviours, according to van Tulleken.

If you've ever seen videos on SM of a baby trying ice cream/pizza/whatever for the first time, that 'lighting up' expression is how I imagine my brain reacting to a lot UPF. If I have a slice of homemade cake, and a slice of shop bought cake, even though the homemade is objectively nicer, I notice a 'signal' once I've finished the shop bought like... 'Oh, that's over. Didn't it feel nice in your mouth though? Another piece wouldn't hurt...'

I can't really explain it but it's more a compulsion to keep the mouth feel going more than whether or not I'm full. That doesn't come into it ime.