What Is Food Noise—and How to Stop It When It Feels Overwhelming

You’re not even done with lunch, and you’re worrying about what you’ll have for dinner. Meanwhile, you’re still beating yourself up for the extra snack you ate yesterday. You just know that if you had more willpower, you could quiet this never-ending buzz in your brain.

As omnivores with lots of options, all of us spend time considering what and when to eat. But for some people, thoughts about food become overwhelming, interfering with daily functioning. There’s now a name for this concept: food noise.

“Food noise is persistent, unwanted, or distressing thoughts about food that affect your well-being,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, R.D.N., author of The Flexitarian Diet and The Superfood Swap. This goes beyond hunger, meal-planning, or even cravings—it’s more intense and intrusive. Think of it like a preoccupation or even an obsession, closer to the types of repetitive thoughts therapists often refer to as rumination.

Brain chatter about food isn’t a new phenomenon, says psychotherapist Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, L.C.S.W., who’s spent nearly two decades working with people who have eating disorders. But the term food noise and discussions about it have been fueled by the rapid rise in prescriptions for Ozempic, Wegovy, and other GLP-1 agonist medications.

People taking these drugs soon began reporting that they dampened food noise, as a study published in June in JAMA Network Open confirms. And once things quieted down, they reflected on how deafening the din had been in the first place.

Now, researchers are catching up with the conversation, working to define food noise and help people cope when it’s overpowering. Here’s what they’re finding—and what you can do if it’s buzzing in your brain, too.

Meet the experts: Dawn Jackson Blatner, R.D.N., a registered dietitian and author of The Flexitarian Diet and The Superfood Swap; Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, LCSW, a psychologist specializing in eating disorders.

Health experts aren’t yet sure, and there probably isn’t a single, straightforward answer. The fact that GLP-1s—which mimic hormones that control satiety, or your feelings of fullness and satisfaction—quiet food noise suggests levels of these chemicals play a role.

Blatner cites several other factors that seem to turn up the dial on food noise:

• Skimping on shuteye. Sleep deprivation dampens another satisfaction hormone, leptin, while raising levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin, according to a 2023 study in Obesity.
• Being super-stressed. Temporary sources of pressure, like a big project at work, might amplify food noise in the short term, researchers suggest in the journal Nutrients. And more constant strain—such as from being food insecure or coping with discrimination—can make the cacophony turn chronic.
• Restricting your eating. If you’re dieting or avoiding foods or food groups, it’s going to be difficult to stop thinking about your next meal or snack. Repeated cycles of deprivation can build, making food noise harder to ignore for those who constantly cycle on and off diets.

A panel of experts who met at a recent American Society of Nutrition meeting agrees: Too much food noise can cause mental, physical, and social problems. To break that down a bit:

• Mental: Like any other type of rumination, food noise can cause distress, anxiety, and a heaping helping of shame and self-blame. “If you’re thinking about food too much, you might feel that you’re not able to concentrate,” Roth-Goldberg says. “It can make you feel a lack of presence.”
• Physical: Often, people link food noise to overeating and related metabolic disorders. But excessive food noise can also cause you to restrict food or overexercise, Roth-Goldberg says, contributing to problems ranging from cardiovascular conditions to poor bone health.
• Social: Intrusive thoughts about food also make it hard to connect with other people. You may be so busy worrying about what to eat that you can’t enjoy gatherings or focus on caregiving or other important responsibilities.

“We only have so much energy in our lives, and so if we are putting it toward negative rumination, that means that we are taking it away from all these other things,” Blatner says.

Again, everyone thinks about food sometimes; also, you need signals like hunger to determine how to nourish your body, Roth-Goldberg says. So not all food-related brain chatter is problematic.

Add Prevention as a preferred source in your Google search results.

Use your Google account to add this to your settings.

Add to Google settings

So how do you know where to draw the line? In a study published last year in the journal Obesity, researchers introduced—and validated, meaning they confirmed its usefulness—something called the Food Noise Questionnaire. While it was developed to help medical professionals and researchers, you can also use it as a self-test.

Consider how much you identify with each of these statements:

• I find myself constantly thinking about food throughout the day.
• My thoughts about food feel uncontrollable.
• I spend too much time thinking about food.
• My thoughts about food have negative effects on me and my life.
• My thoughts about food distract me from what I need to do.

If you strongly agree with most or all of them, food noise may be an issue for you, Blatner says.

While it’s tempting to call your doctor—or fill out an online form—and demand a GLP-1 prescription, that’s not necessarily the best first step. “I think of GLP-1s as a mute button, not a solution,” Roth-Goldberg says. If you aren’t thoughtful about how you incorporate them, they can wipe out even the helpful signals that guide food choices—and they can lead to weight loss even if that wasn’t your intention.

Instead, begin by making lifestyle changes. This can go a long way in optimizing your hormones and quieting the clamor, Blatner says. For example:

• De-stress. There’s a lot of turmoil right now that’s beyond any one person’s control, but the more you can do to remove extra tension from your life—and balance out what remains with tools like meditation and mindfulness—the quieter food noise may seem.
• Focus on sleep. Again, getting good rest is often easier said than done, especially if you’re in perimenopause. Basic sleep hygiene—like sticking to a schedule and keeping your bedroom cool and quiet—can help. If you’re struggling to fall or stay asleep for more than a couple of weeks, it’s worth talking with your doctor about potential causes and solutions.
• Avoid restrictive diets. For one thing, undereating and weight cycling can amplify food noise. And while techniques like counting macros or calories may temporarily dim food noise because you feel free to include previously banned foods, they soon lead to a whole new set of sounds. “You’re constantly doing a math puzzle to figure out what you can eat, and then that becomes the food noise,” Roth-Goldberg says.
• Heed your hunger. “When people can recognize that they are hungry and tend to the hunger they feel, it is easier to make food choices,” Roth-Goldberg says. A registered dietitian or a therapist can help if you’re stuck, and it’s often worth the effort.
• Eat satisfying meals. More research is needed to prove the effects of specific nutrients on food noise. But regular meals rich in protein and fiber can keep you fuller for longer and optimize your appetite hormones, so it’s reasonable to start there to balance your diet, Blatner says. She suggests aiming for about 30 grams of protein at each meal, and 30 grams of fiber spread throughout the day.

If you try these steps and still feel that food noise is interfering with your functioning, it makes sense to talk to your doctor, a registered dietitian, or a therapist with training in eating disorders. Treatments—yes, GLP-1s, but also methods like mindfulness training or body image work—may help soothe the static.

One big positive in the conversation around GLP-1s and food noise is that medical providers are less likely to blow off these issues or frame them as a lack of discipline. “After the foundation of lifestyle has been established, now people can go to an expert and talk about this, and there are tools available,” Blatner says.

If you believe you are struggling with an eating disorder and need support, call the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at (800) 931-2237. You can text HOME to 741741 to message a trained crisis counselor from the Crisis Text Line for free