Food noise isn’t the problem - it’s a symptom

'Food noise' is a term often used these days to describe what it’s like to have constant thoughts about food. It describes really well that continual loop of thinking about what you're going to eat next, what you've already eaten, when you should next eat or whether or not to eat. When I first heard the phrase, I thought ‘YES!’. The two words sum up exactly as I remember it being when I used to make endless plans and promises and negotiations with myself and food and when I was in a constant loop of resisting and craving and thinking about food over and over and over again.

It's a relatively recent phrase but what it describes has been a 'thing' for decades — at least decades — with documented studies going back to the 1930s.

I think it’s important to say that because two things have happened as the term 'food noise' has moved into mainstream conversation:

• The experience comes out of the shadows, helping people to feel less alone  — which is, of course, a good thing

• The loudest headlines get the biggest traction and drive the 'solutions', losing nuance and depth — which can be a problem

The biggest problem I’m seeing with this second point is that the term food noise is increasingly being touted as the problem.

When actually it's not.

Food noise is essentially the brain and body's alarm signal for chronic dysregulation.

It's the symptom, not the problem.

And what's really important about that is: if we can understand the problem underneath it, then it's very possible — in fact highly probable — that you do not have to live with food noise.

I'll expand on that in a bit – I know I can’t just leave it hanging! But first, let me explain what I mean by it being touted as the problem.

Somewhere along the line, the experience of having constant intrusive thoughts about food was pathologized. It was branded as a stand-alone biological defect rather than a symptom — labelling it as something that needs to be solved by turning it off.

GLP-1s are exceptionally good at silencing these intrusive thoughts, at the forefront of conversations around food noise and increasingly been seen as a solution. We’re seeing the explosive demand for them as people, understandably so, want to silence the noise.

Now, this article holds no judgement on people taking or considering GLP-1s.

I support clients on GLP-1s, and I've seen them go on to form a much healthier relationship with food and their body once they have space from the noise. It can open capacity to consider that relationship from several angles and form choices about how they want it to be.

GLP-1s can quieten food thoughts remarkably quickly, and I understand why that can feel like an enormous relief — if you've spent years feeling as though food occupies your mind constantly, suddenly having mental space can be incredibly powerful. I absolutely understand that and if they had been around in my day when I had food noise, then I’m sure I’d at least have been looking into them.

But I do think it’s important to recognise the distinction between quietening a symptom, which is what GLP-1s do, and understanding what the symptom is telling us.

Because food noise isn't a sign that you're lacking discipline, willpower or control. It's a signal that something else might need attention.

This is why I’m uncomfortable with the idea that food noise is something we simply need to silence and that the problem will go away if we do that.  And it’s why I don't think GLP-1s are the answer, and why they can potentially keep someone in a cycle they don't realise they're in

I'm specifically thinking about when someone reduces or stops taking GLP-1 doses. It's highly likely the food noise will return. An individualised process of support can address this and, actually, use this awareness to improve someone's relationship with food. But without that support, many people feel the noise returning is failure — their failure — and that they'll have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

It's not that. It's that the thing producing the noise is still there. So once the thing that was silencing it stops, then the noise returns.

In my own experience, both personally and professionally, I know it's possible for food noise to become quieter without medication. It can fade almost entirely, if not disappear altogether. My own preoccupation with food dominated many years of my life until I eventually took myself to therapy and began to understand it. Now there’s no noise around food for me – at all. And it has been this way for the last almost 20 years.

I know it can go away without being chemically suppressed. And without just another structure around how I ate. So, something else must have quietened it.

When we view food noise as the symptom not the pathology then we move away from asking how we get rid of it, to exploring why it’s so loud in the first place. What's making our system so chronically dysregulated that it needs to sound the alarm? What is it trying to tell us — and how can we manage that dysregulation, so the alarm no longer needs to sound? i.e. Let's find the fire, not just take the batteries out of the smoke detector.

The answers to those questions don't give quick solutions. But they can give more sustainable ones. I often parallel GLP-1s with medications like SSRIs, which can create enough emotional stability to give people more capacity to find new ways of managing emotions. So GLP-1s may well have a place in supporting some people by giving them relief for a period of time to then consider longer-term approaches to healing their relationship with food by discovering what their food noise is trying to tell them. But I don’t think they solve it.

So what might food noise be trying to tell us? What might it be a symptom of?

Sometimes it's actually quite straightforward: you're not eating enough.

When our bodies are undernourished, it makes complete sense that food becomes more prominent in our thoughts — our brains are remarkably good at keeping us focused on things we need to survive. If your body needs more energy, louder food thoughts aren't a failure. They're actually a very natural survival mechanism, and it would be strange if our brain didn't do this.

Less straightforwardly, food noise isn't always about food itself — it can also be about what's happening emotionally. When we're anxious, overwhelmed or dysregulated, our minds often look for somewhere to go. Food can become a convenient place to land our attention, because thinking about food can feel more manageable than thinking about the things that are actually hurting.

It might be easier to think about whether you should have that biscuit than to think about how unhappy you are in your relationship. Easier to spend an hour mentally planning tomorrow's meals than to sit with how overwhelmed you feel at work. More controllable to focus on your body, your weight or what you've eaten than to sit with uncertainty, loneliness, anger or fear. This doesn't mean you're consciously choosing to avoid those things — it means your mind is doing what minds do: moving you toward something that feels more familiar, more controllable or more solvable when everything else feels too much.

 And food is remarkably good at providing these three things.

There are rules to be made around food. Numbers. Decisions. Plans to download, and endless articles on what we 'should' be eating. These feel like things you can control — and if the rest of your life feels chaotic or emotionally overwhelming, it can be strangely comforting to have something more concrete to focus on. How much easier to start a diet plan or focus on how much protein you are getting in than to sit with feeling unsure in your relationships?

If food has become the place your mind habitually goes when life feels difficult, simply telling yourself to stop thinking about it isn't going to solve much. Food has become the way of coping — and as I said in an earlier blog (De-villainising coping strategies), there's no real point taking a coping strategy away when there's nothing to replace it.

What I often see happen is this: someone starts GLP-1s, the food noise goes quiet, their weight goes down, and that becomes a focus — they feel good, they feel a confidence they haven't felt, they get compliments. Then they reduce or come off them, and the thoughts return. As a simple piece of information, that's a signal that the thing producing the noise is still there.

But for many, it becomes a spiral instead: why can't I control this, how do other people manage it, do I have to try harder, am I too weak to do this without medication, does this mean I'll be on them for life? Often alongside a tremendous fear of gaining weight again.

These thoughts themselves can become evidence of internal stories that have probably already been simmering away: it's me, I’m the problem — I'm greedy, out of control, can't be trusted around food, have no willpower. And those stories grow arms and legs, creating shame, more attempts to control food, more restriction, more disconnection from the body, more dysregulation — and less likelihood of the food thoughts going away.

But this doesn't have to be the only route. If the noise is a message rather than a malfunction, the choice of a continued cycle or staying on medication isn't the only one.

There is another way that doesn't involve a new meal plan or set of rules. It's a slower way of finding out what your particular alarm is about — whether that's rebuilding trust with a body that's been underfed, learning to sit with feelings that food has been standing in for, or understanding a story about your worth that's been quietly running in the background for years. There's no single protocol, because the noise has never been about one thing.

The answers to why your system is sounding the alarm are likely to be very individual to you.

I won't pretend this is fast. But I can tell you that quiet is possible — not managed, not medicated, not white-knuckled, just quiet.
Possible for me, possible for you.
What I've seen, again and again, in the therapy room, is that when people stop trying to silence the alarm and start listening to it, something shifts that doesn't need to be maintained by force. It becomes sustainable because it's no longer fighting against itself.
Possible for them, possible for you.