to think “food noise” is becoming one of those phrases people hide behind rather than actually dealing with their eating habits?

[foodywoody]

I keep hearing people say they have “food noise” and that’s why they’re constantly thinking about food or snacking, but isn’t that just hunger, boredom, habit, or emotional eating dressed up in a nicer label? I’m not saying it’s not real for some people, especially where there are medical issues involved, but the way it’s thrown around now makes it sound like no one has any control over it at all.

It just feels like another way to remove any personal responsibility. Not everything needs a label. Sometimes it’s just about eating properly and getting enough protein and actually addressing emotional eating.

🤗

Maybe we should get all the naysayers a course if the drug you were on. That would certainly makes this a quieter & nicer place.

Amphetamines silence thoughts of food. As does heroin. As do prescription appetite suppressants. Also cocaine and smoking, to a degree. Nobody felt the need to call it "food noise" until they had a new drug to sell and a captive market.

I think with food addiction you avoid and abstain from your trigger foods entirely. So they become your "alcohol" that you are "powerless" over - ie, if you eat them, things go downhill.

I think it is overused....but I also think it is genuinely a thing.
I had PMDD (winding down now with peri) so mine would be very hormone driven. It also meant that it was like a switch turning off, I felt like a totally different person when I was obsessed with food. Its like an itch you just can't seem to scratch.
I don't think it's a new thing but maybe the processed overly sugary/salty foods we have nowadays make cravings worse.

Could it be that slim people don’t want to accept that it could genuinely be more difficult for some people to restrict their intake because of food noise?
Up to now, slim people have been able to feel superior because they think they have more willpower than us fatties but if they accept that food noise is.a thing for some people then they won’t be able to be so smug?

There is def a smug element!
I kinda get it though. When I have food noise it's like I have zero willpower. But when I don't I don't even need willpower because I just don't want the food!
It's easy to avoid junk food if you don't even think about it!

Exactly. I don’t drink alcohol but that doesn’t mean that I have more willpower than an alcoholic, I just don’t have any desire to drink.

Food noise comes from processed foods, junk foods, UPFs - foods specifically designed to stimulate desire, and foods like fat and sugar in combination known to trigger cravings.

Nobody suffers from food noise when they eat a whole-food plant-based diet and avoid all UPFs.

I'm overweight. I don't think about food outside of mealtimes and I have ever experienced food noise. Some people can think of nothing but food. I'm sure they don't choose to be like that.

I didn’t think food noise was a thing until
i used a WLI

Just because you haven't experienced it OP does not mean it doesn't exist.

"Junk food noise" would be a more appropriate label...

I was just about to come on and say something similar. Not junk food but carb addiction (which is actually probably sugar addiction).

I start the day with a lovely protein filled breakfast. I take healthy foods for lunch. The smell of the bad food makes me feel like I am starving myself, like ‘just this one today’ will be fine. ‘I deserve it’ because ‘I’ve been good’.

I hate it and I don’t give in often but I feel miserable about it. My bmi has just crept up to 29/30. I can’t afford wli and I need help to stop.

We eat healthily as a family and I don’t snack after dinner. Between midday and dinner I pick and snack. I hate myself.

I can relate to this and I’ve also noticed my phobias have reduced. I’m still scared of them but not absolutely terrified to the point where it’s on my mind constantly. (Particularly the eight legged creepy crawlies) in fact WLI has calmed my mind in general.

Anorexics suffer horrendous food noise. It’s a constant fight not to eat more than you have allowed yourself that day. Sometimes that allowance is zero. It’s a source of pride, however fucked up not to eat. To not give in to that drive to eat. My longest period of no food, nothing at all except Diet Coke, options hot chocolate once a day, and coffee, was 10 days. The food noise was horrendous. I felt like absolute shit with headaches, nausea, felt faint, was so so cold and my
lips were frequently blue but the food noise had to be ignored. It took every ounce of my control to ignore it but I told myself I had to. Lots of the feelings described about food noise here are experienced with anorexia. What makes the anorexic succeed for want of a better word whereas the overweight or obese person can’t? Both have an eating disorder but one eats too much and one eats too little. Lots of posters on the weight loss injections board admit to having binge eating disorder. Autistic girls in particular are susceptible to anorexia and the links with ADHD and overeating are certainly anecdotally there. All my eating disordered friends are ND just like me. I think it would make a fascinating area of research.
I’m no longer anorexic but still have extensive food issues relating to autism and have a very restricted diet. I still get food noise. I still mostly ignore it if I’ve had all my meals. I’m very stubborn and those old mindsets will always be there I think. l read a lot of the weight loss threads and the problems people describe due to obesity and the messed up metabolisms from yo yo dieting for decades has made me promise myself I’ll do whatever I can to not get overweight. I think more work needs to be done to prevent people from becoming overweight and obese in the first place. Health education hasn’t worked. Researchers need to look at the underlying issues with brain chemistry and psychological factors.

So many people in this thread denying that food noise is a thing - because they haven’t experienced it.

Whatever those of us who experience it choose to call it, can you not just accept that there is this thing that we find problematic and intrusive (and exhausting)?

Alternatively you can continue to judge us from your very lucky position of never having to battle with and continue with your lazy, mean and uninformed posts about how we are undisciplined, greedy lard arses. That would say more about you than us though.

Not junk food but carb addiction (which is actually probably sugar addiction).

I very much doubt anyone experiences "food noise" about a sweet potato. This lumping in of highly processed carbohydrates with the complex carbohydrates found in vegetables and wholegrains is not helpful.

In fact to increase natural GLPs in the gut, a person needs to eat more wholegrains and vegetables, more lentils and beans and other sources of fibre, and more complex carbohydrates in general.

Do you understand how forums work?

If you read the OP she doesn’t say it’s not a thing. Simply that its one thing dressed up as another.

@formerannarina Anorexics suffer horrendous food noise. It’s a constant fight not to eat more than you have allowed yourself that day.

That’s not food noise, that’s hunger. Deep fundamental hunger as you were starving yourself.

But I agree that many overweight people may have EDs - whether binge eating disorder or straight food addiction.

There is research that shows that some people have a genetic susceptibility to 2 things - one, a reward deficiency that requires more food to feel satisfied and two, a heightened sensitivity that makes high calorie foods more enticing. All to do with dopamine. V interesting!

I stumbled across this when I had genetic testing for a heart problem in my family.

She says it’s a way to avoid personal responsibility.
It absolutely is not.
People that are lucky enough not to experience it would do well to keep their ill informed opinions to themselves.
I can assure you it’s different to emotional eating, boredom eating or whatever else she says we’re trying to excuse.
Is it not enough that a person who experiences it states what their experience is or will you all just continue to tell us what we experience is a fabrication?
Please do not try to tell people what they feel and experience is not valid. It makes you look very foolish.

I understand you want it to be different. In that case you don’t have to take responsibility for being an addict. But that’s rather OP’s point.

If a person thought about alcohol all day and drank a lot they would just be regarded as an alcoholic. They could try to blame “alcohol noise” but that doesn’t really change anything.