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 your fault OP because you don't know what you don't know but.... you clearly have no idea what actual food noise is. That's great for you that you don't have to deal with that like a lot of us do but please don't form opinions on it unless you truly understand it.

Did you also send children up chimneys in your day? Thank god for progress

Obesity is not a human condition though. It is a disease but you can take that up with the WHO if you fancy your chances.

that escalated quickly 😂

Well your post revealed your age 😅. I was merely trying to explain how times have changed

It seems as though nobody can disagree with WLI’s these days without being told they’re fatphobic or hate obese people. It’s boring.

@sunflowersandsunsets don’t “agree” with WLIs? (Strange way of putting it, but still…) Then don’t use them. No need to judge or comment on anytime else using them. None of your business.

a further thought on food noise - for me the differentiation from other normal hunger signals is that I get it when I don’t need to eat. I simply don’t experience the normal mechanism by which the body signals “full, stop eating”. Mounjaro rapidly restored that for me - halfway through an evening meal I’d realise that I’d had enough, I didn’t want any more. That was it. I think so much damage was done to so many of us as children when we were told to clear our plates when we said we had had enough. We learned to override our natural body signals and WLI is helping me re-establish them.

It’s not about the language - my issue is why does something we’ve always experienced suddenly require huge numbers of people to take lifelong medication?

This is a discussion forum - it would be very boring if we all just agreed to disagree and never debated or discussed anything 😉

I guess my point is that we should be addressing the cause of it, not just shoving everyone on medication and considering it a solution.

But this is what people that don't experience or understand food noise fail to understand - the medication IS addressing the cause of it. The cause of a lot of obesity is not just over eating. Scientists and doctors now understand this. It is a metabolic and genetic issue. The medication treats the cause of the food noise by dampening it, and also impacts hormones which results in weight loss.

Maybe, just maybe, the medication is addressing the cause for many people who use it? Given that the causes of obesity are hugely complex and dependant on both the individuals and wider society. For each person who takes it, you don’t know what has gone wrong and what WLIs are addressing in their body.

I know for example it has had a real and measurable positive impact on my body as my blood sugars returned to a normal level, and my blood pressure dropped - all within the first couple of months before any significant weight loss.

Is a simple question all it took?

Are there a lot of people using the medication to get their bikini body ? Yes

But for a lot of us it is a life saving medication that will save us from developing diabetes and cancer. Obesity is a massive cause of some cancers. It is also the first time in my life that I have been able to understand how most people experience food. It's hard to explain but for me it has been a revelation.

Well you can't investigate the cause if you don't first of all think that there is a problem and that there may be a requirement for treatment! If everyone thought that food noise was just a normal part of life that shouldn't be pathologised and medicated.

I think, from what I understand, that the GLP1 drugs suppress appetite, and that is what lowers the volume or cuts out completely any of this mental chatter.

You can get the same affect with amphetamines, and other prescription weight loss pills on the market. (Also with coke, speed, and heroin, though that is obviously not the best idea!)

Do the things you mentioned suppress the appetite in exactly the same way as GLP1’s?

No, they don't slow gastric emptying, for starters, which enhances the feeling of fullness apparently.

They have different mechanisms of action, and differenrt side-effects, but they all signal the brain somehow to turn off appetite.

Food noise is the noise every addict hears everyday, at the same rate, constantly overwhelmed battle, regardless of the choice of drug, be it food, drugs, alcohol. The highs, the lows, the shame, self criticism, helplessness to stop etc etc. all addiction behaviours.
A heroin addict thinks about heroin all day, sugar is highly addictive and the whole diet industry needs to be treated like an addiction.

But why are people renaming hunger with the term food noise? It’s pathologising something that doesn’t need to be pathologised because it’s a completely normal part of being human that everyone experiences. It’s hunger - when you’re really hungry you think obsessively about food, you plan what you’re going to eat, you get cravings, sometimes all you can think about is food until you eat and are therefore not hungry anymore. I do believe there is a section of people who have a genuine food addiction that likely has an emotional cause, possibly a trauma response to something that’s happened in their lives, similar to an addiction to alcohol. But these people tend to be severely morbidly obese and this deserves to be pathologised because it’s linked to trauma and emotional eating. This is not what I think most people mean when they talk about ‘food noise’ though.

I do experience food noise and always have - I’m just not convinced the solution is to put the vast majority of the population on medication.

Do WLI’s suppress appetite and help people lose weight? Of course they do - but we need to address the reasons why so many people are apparently struggling so badly in the first place, not just put them all on lifelong injections and think that’s the solution - just like people with chronic headaches are investigated first, not just put on lifelong pills.

Why is it that whenever people bang on about accountability they never seem to consider that WLI are that accountability?

Like, I’m paying hundreds of pounds a month for these things out of my own pocket. As a result I am losing a huge amount of weight which means it’s very likely I will be much less of a burden on the NHS as I have reduced my risk of a whole load of illnesses for which I would otherwise have needed publicly-funded treatment. What part of this is not taking accountability?

Would it really be preferable and more accountable for me to spend the rest of my life in the same yo-yo pattern of losing and then regaining a couple of stone, like I’ve been doing my whole adult life?

Apologies think I misunderstood 😅 sorry x

But why are people renaming hunger with the term food noise?

@Iatethelastbiscuit as so many people have said on this thread, food noise is not hunger. I experience food noise when I am not hungry. I can tell the difference very easily. Hunger is a different feeling from food noise.

You don’t have to say it, or even consciously think it. There’s infinite ways your bias can go undetected-even to you. Read up on conscious and unconscious bias. There’s plenty of evidential reading out there that is easily accessible. And boring? Because you don’t agree with what I have to say? Honestly, I’ve read all your replies and what I find boring personally is your facade of trying to enter in to a robust discussion but then subsequently ignoring all of the commentary that disproves your point, and instead of allowing yourself to listen to others experiences or go away and read the material suggested to you or conduct your own research on the matter, you seem to be doubling down on your original point and it’s coming across as extremely small minded. Cravings are not the same as food noise, science supports this. Obesity isn’t a moral failing. It’s not something you can cast out of an overweight person like a devil with holy water. There are many socioeconomic, political and social factors as well as individual health, mental health and other indicators that contribute towards obesity, food noise, and other weight related problems which is exactly why a medication targeting one small part of the bigger picture has been approved. Yet you’ve said that essentially, you believe it’s all over pathologised, we don’t need to name and medicate everything-even though you yourself name your ailments and medicate them…so by isolating one group (the people who have food noise) and saying that they don’t need support are what? Are essentially being dramatic? I hate to break it to you but that is bias, usually driven by eternalised things exactly like internalised fatphobia-which, as its evidence based, I’m sure you’ll agree is far from boring. I believe you are the one who has some research and growing to do in this instance.

@Iatethelastbiscuit for me it isn't hunger. Hunger is a physical sensation, that is very identifiable. I have a growling stomach and feel empty inside. If I have a large glass of water it abates temporarily.

Food noise is similar to the compulsion I experience to pick at the skin on my fingers They are covered in scar tissue and I know that I shouldn't do it, but I cannot seem to stop myself and my mind endlessly compels me to pick. Food noise happens regardless of hunger and is like a monkey chattering inside my head constantly and relentlessly about food. I always thought it was "greed" until I first took WLI in August 2024 and it was completely silenced! I had never heard of it, didn't know I had it, I just thought I was a greedy cow and had spent 40+ years in a battle of wills not to turn into a massive human being. Endless diets that were always successful and then the inevitable regain. I was never morbidly obese, I was mostly overweight, tipping into the lower end of obese, which was usually when I would start to diet again.

However, as I have discovered since being on the WLI boards for the best part of the last two years, people experience their battles with food in different ways and for some people food noise is insatiable hunger. Their insulin or ghrelin or whatever pathways are so disrupted that they constantly feel hungry.

We have a worldwide obesity crisis and we definitely do need to understand it better. I believe it is multi-causal and think that every bit of help we can get is useful and will hopefully take us forwards in our ability to manage ourselves better.