Food noise is when you find yourself constantly thinking about or being preoccupied with food.
Food noise is when you find yourself constantly thinking about or being preoccupied with food. It’s more than just going over what you’ll have for breakfast or how great dinner was last night.
If you experience food noise, you might have ongoing, obsessive, or intrusive thoughts about food. These thoughts can affect your quality of life and make maintaining a healthy weight difficult.
While it’s not a medical diagnosis, there are ways you can reduce food chatter in your brain, including mindfulness techniques, therapy, and GLP-1 medications.
Read on for everything you need to know about food noise, including how to get rid of food noise — or at least turn down the volume.
Food noise is a colloquial term used to describe the constant mental chatter some people experience around food.
You may find yourself:
Always thinking about food (especially high-calorie foods containing fat, sugar, and salt)
Craving specific foods
Checking food delivery apps multiple times a day
Thinking about your next meal when you’re eating your current meal
Feeling guilty about what you ate
Feeling like your life revolves around food
These thoughts may be a constant companion in your daily life and be difficult to suppress or ignore. They can lead to overeating, unhealthy food choices, and emotional eating. Consequently, food noise can lead to weight gain and trouble losing weight.
Anyone can experience food noise — including those with and without eating disorders — but it may especially affect people with poor body image or excess body weight.
Before we dive into how to quiet food noise, we want to explain one thing. Reducing food noise isn’t about silencing thoughts about food completely. Thinking about food and nutrition is a natural part of human biology — we all need to eat, after all.
Instead, you want to work on turning the volume down on food noise so you can develop a healthier relationship with food.
You can still enjoy nutritious meals, plan fun recipes, and remember meals enjoyed with friends. You just don’t want to have obsessive food-related thoughts crowd your brain or control your eating behaviors.
Try implementing mindfulness practices into your day.
One study found that mindfulness techniques — including self-directed or guided imagery and body scanning — helped participants have fewer thoughts about food.
You could also practice mindful eating, which involves paying attention to what you eat, when you’re reaching for food, and how you feel. This can help you figure out if you really have hunger cues (e.g., a rumbling stomach) or if you’re snacking because food noise has driven you to the fridge.
If you have overweight or obesity, GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist) drugs can help you lose weight by suppressing your appetite and increasing satiety (helping you feel fuller).
Another surprising benefit that’s popped up? Reducing food noise.
As well as working in the gut and lowering blood sugar, these weight loss drugs target areas in the brain involved with reward and hunger.
People have reported that GLP-1 drugs help dampen mental chatter about food. This side effect can help them stick to a healthy eating plan and healthy portion sizes, hitting their weight loss goals and getting some brain space back.
For example, a 2019 study on 113 people with obesity found that those taking liraglutide and participating in intensive behavioral therapy for one year reported a greater decrease in food preoccupation than those just doing intensive behavioral therapy alone.
You have a few options when it comes to weight loss medication, including:
Semaglutide (Ozempic®, Wegovy®, compounded semaglutide)
Liraglutide (Saxenda® and Victoza®)
Tirzepatide (Mounjaro®, Zepbound®, compounded tirzepatide)
A 2023 study found that people with overweight or obesity experienced fewer food cravings and had better control of eating when taking semaglutide at a 2.4-milligram dose.
Food noise doesn’t just affect your physical health — you may find it affects your mental health too.
If you’re experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression — or even eating disorders like binge eating disorder — consider reaching out to a mental health professional.
They can talk you through tools and strategies to control food noise, cravings, or triggers like stress. A psychiatry provider can also help you get to the bottom of what’s behind your food noise and recommend treatments to improve your mental health, if needed.
If you’re struggling with emotional eating or similar problems, your provider may recommend cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you change your thoughts and behaviors around food.
Food noise or not, you’ve gotta eat. You may find yourself preoccupied with food if you’re restricting yourself or not getting enough nutrients.
Aim to fill your plate with nutrient-dense foods to give your body the fuel it needs to feel satisfied and energized.
Focus on:
Fruits and vegetables
Whole grains like brown rice, oatmeal, and whole-wheat bread
Lean protein like chicken, tofu, and fish
Healthy fats like avocados, olive oil, and nuts
In particular, try to eat more protein. Foods high in protein can help you feel fuller, and some research suggests they may even help reduce cravings.
Beyond your main meals, make sure to have healthy snacks on hand, like dried fruit, nuts, seeds, and Greek yogurt.
One more thing: Make sure you’re drinking enough water. Your body can mistake thirst for hunger, and drinking more water throughout the day can help reduce your appetite.
There are a few additional steps you can take and lifestyle changes that can make managing food noise easier — and reduce those thoughts in the first place.
Here’s what to do.
When you’re sleep-deprived, you may feel hungrier and have more cravings for high-fat or high-carb foods. You may also experience more food noise.
Aim for at least seven hours of sleep a night. If that number feels out of reach, try:
Keeping a regular sleep schedule
Winding down before bed
Making your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet
Avoiding screens before bed
You might be surprised how much less you think about food and how much better you feel overall when you’re well-rested.
You may find yourself reaching for unhealthy foods, eating more than usual, or experiencing more cravings and intrusive food thoughts when stressed. Kinda ironic as food noise itself can be stressful.
To help, practice stress management techniques like:
Meditation or breathing exercises
Getting out in nature
Regular physical activity
Reaching out to friends and family
We’ve got tips on how to manage stress eating if that’s affecting you.
You want to take steps to reduce food noise, of course, but you don’t want to force it too much.
Research is mixed, but purposely trying to avoid certain thoughts — known as thought suppression — may backfire and lead to having more thoughts about food. You might even end up eating more after trying to suppress your food thoughts.
Practice the steps we’ve outlined above — but with plenty of self-compassion and patience. You’ve got this.
There are a few health and safety considerations to keep in mind when you’re working on managing food noise:
Make sure you’re eating enough. If you’re white-knuckling it through food chatter and resisting cravings, you need to make sure you’re still eating enough food to fuel your body and avoid nutritional deficiencies. Planning your meals ahead of time or following a healthy eating plan may help here.
Take care of your mental health. Food noise can dominate your day and be hugely stressful, so make sure you’re taking care of your mental health. Reach out to friends and family for support, practice self-care, and speak to a mental health professional if you’re experiencing disordered-eating behaviors or mental health issues.
Food noise may come back if you stop taking medication. If you’re taking a weight loss drug like semaglutide to quiet food noise and lose weight, know that food noise may return when you stop taking the medication. If you stop, be sure to lean into other strategies for managing food noise, like mindfulness and stress-management techniques.
If you’re experiencing overwhelming food noise that’s getting in the way of your weight loss efforts or quality of life, know that you can do something about it.
Our best advice is to reach out to a healthcare provider.
They can recommend the best course of action for your situation, whether that’s therapy, lifestyle interventions (like managing stress or mindful eating), or weight loss medications like semaglutide.
If you’d like to learn more about weight management medications and weight loss programs that may help with food noise, take our online weight loss assessment to discover which treatments could be suitable for you.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The information contained herein is not a substitute for and should never be relied upon for professional medical advice. Always talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of any treatment. Learn more about our editorial standards here.
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