Well, why not? Everyone else is.
First of all, I want to say straight away that we’ll be talking about weight loss drugs, and while I’m obviously not in favour of them, I don’t judge fat folk negatively for using them, because the pressure is so overwhelming. I’ve said quite openly that I’ve even been tempted myself on occasion.
One of the phrases that’s crept into the conversation and now seems to be everywhere is ‘food noise’. We’d never heard of this before 2025 – it certainly didn’t appear in my training – so it’s understandable to be confused or curious about what it might be. I will admit that I’ve been cynical and misunderstood it myself, so I want to acknowledge that mistake and set the record straight.
Having an Appetite is normal
What people love about the new GLP1 weight loss drugs is that they ‘switch off food noise’. Initially I got quite angry with that expression. It seemed to me that people were really saying ‘it supresses my appetite’. We’ve used appetite suppressant drugs for weight loss in the past and it’s never ended well. Apart from anything else, hunger cues are a perfectly normal evolutionary process. Why is it considered helpful for us not to know when our bodies require fuel or nourishment? For most of us it’s enough of a learning curve to listen to our bodies and discover what they need to nourish them, and also to distinguish between hunger cues, boredom and emotions that require soothing without switching those signals off so that we lose the possibility of listening and learning, and they become overpowering and potentially unmanageable if the medication is stopped. The overwhelming evidence is that, for the majority of people who use weight loss medication, this is what happens.
But Appetite and Food Noise are not the same
Having food noise isn’t the same as having an appetite; it’s something quite different. It’s thinking about food all the time to the point of obsession. It’s having a constant, intrusive, food-related voice in your head that won’t go away however much you wish it would. It is not at all the same as hunger. In fact, some people with food noise are thinking about what they will eat at their next meal when they are currently in the middle of eating. Apparently, food noise is more common in neurodiverse individuals.
Although ‘food noise’ is a term that few of us would have heard before this year, the concept has been described in clinical literature for many years as ‘Food Related Intrusive Thoughts’ or FRITs. FRITs are effectively food cues on speed.
What are Food Cues?
Our bodies have evolved to respond to food cues. From the sizzle of chips in a pan to the heavenly scent of a juicy apple, we receive hundreds of food cues a day. They help us to know what food is available, and what would be appealing to us on a particular day. Since the advent of supermarket shopping and food advertising, food cues are more numerous and more brash than ever before, and foods are specifically manufactured to cue our desires. It’s little wonder that the constant stimulus of food cues can turn into overwhelm, especially in the neurospicy brain. Some people can ignore these cues, but in other people they are incredibly strong, and become a constant – and unwelcome – companion.
What's it like to experience food noise?
I thought I had never experienced food noise, so I didn’t understand when it was first explained to me.
Looking back, I was wrong. I did experience food noise during my dieting phase. It wasn’t a good thing at all.
I thought about food all the time. I can remember being obsessed with what I would eat and what I couldn’t eat and always thinking about what to eat next. I would literally cry if I ever had to eat out because I was afraid to eat the ‘wrong’ thing. If a food had even a tiny bit of sugar in it, I would go nuts. I would spend hours in the supermarket poring over labels. If I ate something ‘bad’ I would feel terrible about myself. It wasn’t at all a healthy relationship with food, and it was very hard on the people around me as well.
If that’s the way people with food noise are living every day, I really feel for them, and I don’t blame them at all for wanting a way out.
My way of switching off the food noise was to stop practicing restrictive behaviours. Food noise can occur when you’re restricting food (aka dieting) and the body is fighting back. In my case, when the behaviour stopped, the intrusive thoughts stopped. My food noise was purely situational, but it’s not like that for everyone. I do think about food, but that’s because it’s my job and because I genuinely enjoy food and cooking. After I’ve had a nice meal or finished the particular food-related task I’m working on, I think about something else. People with food noise don’t have the ability to do that.
Do you have Food Noise or Appetite?
There are a few ways that doctors measure food noise or FRIT but they are not widely used and there isn’t a gold standard test. So, how do you know if you have food noise, or just a normal appetite? If you want an analogy that makes sense to me because I’ve lived it, it’s like the difference between being very unhappy and miserable when faced with suffering or grief, which is perfectly normal, even though it’s uncomfortable, and suicidal ideation, which I’m told is not normal at all. Similarly, you may be very annoyed when you start to feel ravenous at work at an inconvenient time, or you crave chocolate when you’re stressed, or you may dislike your appetite because you think you would like to eat less, but it doesn’t consume your every waking minute, and it normally subsides after you’ve eaten a meal that’s normal for you. It might be inconvenient, but it’s generally not an illness, and it doesn’t need treating.
If, on the other hand, you have insatiable cravings or continual unwelcome thoughts about food, perhaps you have food noise. However, there may be something else going on instead or as well, such as suboptimal blood sugar balance or disturbed sleep.