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.

It’s not dissimilar on a totally different subject to lots of nasty comments I saw on Twitter around Brexit vote time - ‘it’s worth voting for just to piss off people who have options and can work for themselves within the EU or get jobs there’ - or comfortably off women divorcing on here being told ‘well you will need to get a job at Tescos - anything will do’ -

It really is not.
It's called greed

@Jollyjupiter Just calling it greed is spectacularly unhelpful though. There are myriad reasons why people display what you call "greed" around food which are just ignored by this simplistic approach. The word itself also implies a moral judgement. It has religious connotations as it's one of the christian deadly sins, for example. So an implication of moral failure. It further has an implication of taking more than your fair share, which again is a moral judgement.

I would be interested to know how calling it greed helps anyone in any way? Presumably you just want to shame people into not over eating? Calling it food noise is an attempt to explain the drivers behind the behaviour, which is helpful to understand ways people could address the behaviour. Or to describe how medication like WLI address the behaviour, because they change your hormonal state so that the drive isn't there any more, the "greed" or food noise has gone.

This person deliberately misunderstood my post, I don't want anyone to suffer and I certainly don't want to be right, just to be able to say i told you so.

Then why did you write this: "Being judgemental towards people who are overweight is a delicious dish that karma cannot wait to tuck into"

That is deliberate illwill.

Unfortunately that’s how I read it too - I think maybe it was just wording and not quite how you meant it - and I say this as someone several stone over and having already lost a couple of stone

@SilenceInside - sadly it sounds as if @Jollyjupiter simply enjoys being judgemental and superior, rather than trying to understand why people struggle with their weight. I'm one of those people and I am glad I am surrounded by decent people not ones who enjoy putting the boot in.

I do think food noise is a genetic thing - I have two sons, one was born with my huge appetite and loves big portions of all types of food - even as a baby/toddler - he’s normal weight now but as he ages he might struggle a bit. The other is not bothered about food at all and easily skips meals - he’s really skinny

I am bmi 25 and have had to restrict what I want to eat to stay there since I was around 17. I am either on a diet or putting on weight - no in-between. I am constantly hungry to the extent I can’t focus on tasks/ feel depressed about it/ can’t sleep. I suspect the hunger is compounded by the yo-yo dieting.

Just because you don’t experience it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!

No, it’s absolutely not easy - I find distractions help though and not having unhealthy food in the house to begin with.

I also gave chronic back and hip pain which is noticeably much worse if I put on weight so I have a decent incentive to ignore the noise (not that I’m always successful!)

We get it. You don’t read.

I didn’t misunderstand anything thanks - your post was dripping with nastiness towards people who have managed to keep their weight under control despite struggling with food noise.

And for all those people saying that food noise is only for the overweight etc, I am 5'6 and 8 stone 13, a size 8. But I have constant food noise. No relation to what I eat, or don't eat, or how busy I am. Always there in the back of my head is a little voice whispering 'what are you eating for dinner tonight? What's in the fridge? What about a little bit of cake now to tide you over? Why not have a sandwich?' Constantly.

Because of my ADHD I have learned to ignore impulses (well, nearly always) which is the only reason my weight stays down and also I do a lot of exercise (which helps manage the ADHD as well as shape). I hoped that menopause might calm it all down, but I'm 65 and it is still with me.

Edited because I didn't look at my weight properly!

Yup. Pretty much 🤣

The “food noise” that the minority of severely morbidly obese people suffer from is not food noise. That term has been overused and is a normal cycle of thoughts that go around the average person’s brain on a day-to-day basis, resulting from the nature of all the convenient high fat and high sugar options we have available to us. What that minority of severely morbidly obese people are suffering from is an addiction to food. It’s an eating disorder, not dissimilar to anorexia or bulimia, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. “Food noise” is what normal people have on a normal day

Food noise?
Never heard of it.
As in, the food actually makes some sort of a sound?

😁 There is no way you aren't on a wind up - I spent 50 years being slim and eating what I liked - stop trolling.

I have to admit that I didn't think it was a thing, until it wasn't - in that I started MJ.

I have managed weight before through basically becoming so hyper focused on just not eating. I have HDS and to feel full I need to physically be in discomfort. I was a skinny kid till I was about 9. I grew up in a house of home cooked meals, little to no snacking, and parents that hated ready meals. However, I also had a parent that expected plates to be cleaned, and who gave everyone the same portion size. I was also a kid that was outside and constantly active.

I can literally think about food all day - but not in a case of wanting it. Its a bit neither here nor there to be honest, which also isn't good as it means I don't think of the consequence of just eating one more.

I have been listening to the book 'Magic Pill' by Johann Hari. Now I haven't checked all the sources cited, and I will be looking them up, but it does provide further insight into 'food noise' and generally some ins and outs around these drugs, how people weight has changed, why it has changed and what could/should/might be done.

Around 50-70% of people who lose weight put it back on. I know I did, plus 4 stone.
And even with the jab and restricted calories (and exercise, which is seems isn't as important as diet apparently) I am losing at such a slow rate I can see more easily how I put weight on - Its my lifestyle in that I have a desk job (inactive), i am a mum taxi (inactivity), attending at the hobbies (yet more inactivity).
But, the hunger is still there because EVERYWHERE I go (bar the forest) there are food adverts......

Modern food is designed to turn on the food noise - it is how corporations make ££.

My stomach is actualyl rumbling even writing this post as I have had to think about food!

Anyway..........Thank you for coming to my TED talk 😂. Have a read/listen to that book if you wish, as it does provide some info.

@thehaplessgardener @Crikeyalmighty Ok, maybe that did sound meaner than I intended it - apologies. But what I meant was, similar to getting old, putting on weight is the great equaliser than can suddenly affect you when it has never been a problem in the past.

Do you even have any idea how Grehlin works, OP? And the factors that affect its production?

My guess is - nope

I read it the same way as that poster did. Perhaps you could have worded it better.

Despite all the unhelpful comments from those who can't help themselves from projecting their negativity onto others, this has been a really interesting thread.

I'm fascinated by food noise, since discovering I had it - when it stopped in August 2024! What is interesting is that it means different things to different people and clearly comes from different triggers or places.

For some people it is hunger, constant hunger. For me it definitely isn't hunger. I recognise hunger as a very physical sensation. My stomach is growling and I have an empty sensation inside. I can temporarily get rid of it by drinking a big glass of water. I can also ignore it reasonably well.

But food noise is a constant itch that I want to scratch, which I suspect may be more like the noise addicts hear from their compulsion to drink, gamble, smoke, take drugs etc. It is unrelated to hunger and is more like the relentless compulsion I have to pick the skin on my fingers. I suspect mine is related to childhood abuse but I don't know that and I also don't fully understand why a GLP-1 medication would silence it.

I had no idea that I had it until I didn't, so for me it was undefined previously, although I thought I was greedy and lacked self-control. My fingers are a mess of scar tissue but no one ever suggests that this is caused by greed or lack of self-control. Yet, the compulsion is the same. It does strike me as so odd that so many people seem so reluctant to believe that people can experience something that they don't and therefore that is worthy of name calling and derision.

Since embarking on WLI and following and posting on related threads on here, I have discovered a whole world of visceral hatred for fat people who are trying to be a healthy weight using these medications and fat people in general. It is like the final hiding place of meanies.

No, it's a thing.

My BMI is just 25, im a 10-12 but I fight constantly to maintain that weight which I've done for 20+ years. I say this because I absolutely do have will power and control. I run and weight train, monitor my calories, eat high protein - I'm very healthy, lucky me.

I've just started (third dose) off-license WLI, a large part of doing this was curiosity about food noise (also reduced inflammation, apparent ADHD benefits and of course I would quite like to lose the stone I've been trying to lose for 20 years).

I can't tell you how weird it is not to think about food. I mean I can only assume this is probably how you & that 45% are OP.

It's magical. Like someone has waved a wand and I am suddenly content with lunch and walk away satisfied, not thinking I need something sweet on repeat until I cave.

I think of you're normal weight it's so easy to assume you have superior will power, when actually, your hunger hormones are regulated & you're not constantly told by your treacherous body to eat all the things.

I don’t think I’m the one trolling considering multiple people read your post the same way I did 🙄

I am similar to you, bmi 25 with constant hunger and do lots of walking/cycling but not as much as you, I find exercise makes the food noise worse.

was it easy to get off license WLI? I thought the limit was BMI 27? I think I need to go for it and give WLI a try.