September 16, 2025
6 min read
Susan Weiner, MS, RDN, CDN, CDCES, FACES, talks with Travis Masterson, PhD, and Daisuke Hayashi, MS, about the science behind “food noise” and what health care professionals need to know.
Weiner: To start, what is food noise?
Masterson and Hayashi: Food noise is a term used by patients to describe experiences of intrusive and persistent thought patterns around food. Its rise in popularity in media and social media seems to coincide with the increase in use of GLP-1 medications for weight management, particularly linked to reports that GLP-1 medications can potentially “silence” food noise. For those of us studying the effects of external food cues on motivated eating behavior, we started to hear a lot of overlap between what patients were expressing and how we described food cue reactivity in our research. In our laboratory, we decided to take a look at food cue reactivity — both external, such as food marketing, and internal, such as thoughts about food — to try to describe the overlaps we were seeing.
In our theoretical model and definition, we described food noise as “heightened and/or persistent manifestations of food cue reactivity, often leading to food-related intrusive thoughts and maladaptive eating behaviors.” We believe this is consistent with existing anecdotal reports from people using the term “food noise” to describe constantly thinking about food to the point that it feels like their lives revolve around food. Other groups have provided alternative definitions, but they all seem to revolve around this base concept.
More research is needed to understand what food noise is, especially from a patient-centered perspective.
Weiner: What is the connection between food noise and GLP-1 receptor agonists and incretin medications?
Masterson and Hayashi: The rise in the use of the term “food noise” to describe obsessive and intrusive thought patterns about food very much coincides with the increase in use of medications such as semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy, Novo Nordisk) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound, Eli Lilly) for the treatment of obesity, especially by people who, anecdotally, describe these drugs as capable of “silencing” their constant thoughts about food. We have ongoing research projects aiming to better understand what people understand and describe as food noise, and how food noise might be altered by GLP-1 medication use.
Weiner: What is food cue reactivity?
Masterson and Hayashi: Food cue reactivity, broadly speaking, is the idea that our minds and bodies respond to food-related stimuli, such as the smell of cookies in your house, and how that might lead us to seek out and consume food. Food cues can be both internal, such as your stomach growling, or external, such as smelling something tasty when you walk by a bakery. Our reactivity to food cues is manifested both biologically, such as salivating, and psychologically, such as suddenly craving foods. Our hypothesis is that some individuals who have higher reactivity to food cues might experience food noise if such manifestations are heightened (excessive) and persistent (linger for a long period).
Practically, that means that we have some innate response to food cues, but we might be able to modify the cues we surround ourselves with to improve our drive to eat and, ultimately, our eating behaviors.
Weiner: How does food noise specifically affect women? Does it change with age?
Masterson and Hayashi: This is a great question. Based on yet-to-be published data from our laboratory, most anecdotal evidence on food noise, such as online patient testimonies from people struggling with this phenomenon, comes from women aged 30 years and older. This could be indicative that women older than 30 are more likely to experience food noise, but it may be that we are just seeing more women talk about it openly. It could also mean that part of what triggers food noise is the attitudinal conflict that arises from constant attempts to limit one’s eating due to diet culture — which targets women more intensely than men — while living in a world where food cues are ubiquitous and intense. Think of how many food ads you see while scrolling on social media.
So maybe this tug-of-war between constantly being told to eat less by diet culture, while also being persuaded to eat endless amounts of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods by food marketers, could make women more prone to experiencing food noise. These are just hypotheses; future research should examine gender and sex differences in the likelihood of experiencing food noise and how it manifests.
Weiner: How does marketing influence what we eat, and also food cues?
Masterson and Hayashi: Food marketing employs powerful food cues through the use of food images, often doctored up to look better than is possible in real life; appetizing sounds, like the fizz of a soda can or the crunchy snap of a potato chip; colorful logos; and appeals to emotional marketing, such as associating sugary breakfast cereal with being good at sports, to persuade consumers to buy specific products. The problem with food marketing is that, more often than not, it aims to boost sales of calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods. This is because these types of processed foods have the highest profit margins for food companies. There are relatively few advertisements for fruits, vegetables and minimally processed foods, and many more for candy bars, sugar-sweetened beverages, including energy drinks, and fast food.
Constant cues to consume foods that we ought to limit in our diets can shape how we think about food and have devastating impacts on public health. However, one of the goals of the research in our lab is to better understand how we can use some of these marketing strategies to better position lower-calorie, nutrient-rich foods in the marketplace and to better convey health messages, like cooking and eating with less sugar and fat, to the public.
Weiner: What is the impact of food noise on chronic health conditions?
Masterson and Hayashi: Successful management of several chronic conditions, such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, requires lifestyle changes, including adopting healthier dietary patterns. Our research indicates that food noise can be a significant barrier to adopting healthier dietary patterns, since constant and intrusive thoughts about foods are a “call to action” to overeat. A lot of scientific evidence has shown that increased reactivity to food cues, especially to external cues, is a significant barrier to adopting a healthy diet. This means food noise is likely to undermine efforts to manage a range of chronic conditions, particularly those associated with diet and weight. However, since there is very little research done specifically on food noise, it is not known if food noise might carry its own set of risks outside of heightened food cue responsiveness. For example, some groups are hypothesizing that there might be cognitive or body image issues unique to food noise itself. But there is a lot more work that needs to be done in this space before we can really say anything conclusive.
Weiner: How does heightened reactivity toward food cues, which is experienced as food noise, affect food choices?
Masterson and Hayashi: A lot of good research has been done using neuroimaging techniques, like electroencephalogram, or EEG, and functional MRI, showing that how your brain responds to food impacts what you eat. Additionally, our lab has some new preliminary results that suggest that constant swings in food-related thoughts can make individuals more likely to overeat. Some studies by other laboratories point to higher levels of reactivity to food cues among people living with obesity and with type 2 diabetes. We hypothesize that measuring food cue reactivity and, by extension, food noise, is likely an important step to understanding daily eating patterns. Measuring food cue reactivity is also likely to provide an intervention point close to when a poor eating behavior is about to be engaged in. This potentially gives clinicians and behavioral programs a novel intervention target to try to help people with their eating behaviors.
Weiner: What practical recommendations or strategies do you suggest for dealing with food noise?
Masterson and Hayashi: More research is needed to understand how to manage food noise, but seeking professional help is a great place to start. For instance, registered dietitians can work collaboratively with patients to help establish goals and build eating schedules to help manage food cravings. They can also help patients restructure their eating environments, manage their exposure to food cues, and build coping strategies to navigate nourishing themselves in a world where life is always busy and food cues are everywhere. Psychotherapy with a licensed mental health provider can lead to improvements in a patient’s relationship with food and their ability to manage their thought patterns that arise in response to food cues. There are also different options of pharmacological treatments that a medical provider can discuss with their patient to help manage food noise. From a systems-level perspective, advocating and demanding that lawmakers regulate food marketing and increase access to healthy foods, professional help and medication coverage are also changes that will determine how well we help people struggling with food noise as a society over the next few decades.
Weiner: You emphasized the need for more research on food noise. What else are you working on?
Masterson and Hayashi: Beyond what we already mentioned, our laboratory is currently working on several projects to help scientists, clinicians and society understand what food noise is and how to help manage it. Research on food noise is still in its infancy, and much needs to be done, research-wise, to successfully tackle it and help people whose lives are impacted by obsessive and intrusive thoughts about food.
- For more information:
- Travis Masterson, PhD, is assistant professor and director of the Health, Ingestive Behavior and Technology Laboratory in the department of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University. Masterson can be reached at tpm5262@psu.edu.
- Daisuke Hayashi, MS, is a PhD candidate in nutritional sciences and a research assistant in the Health, Ingestive Behavior and Technology Laboratory in the department of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University.
- Susan Weiner, MS, RDN, CDN, CDCES, FADCES, is the owner of Susan Weiner Nutrition PLLC and the Healio Nourish to Flourish column editor. She can be reached at susan@susanweinernutrition.com or on X @susangweiner.
Sources/Disclosures
Collapse
Source:
Expert Submission
Disclosures:
Hayashi, Masterson and Weiner report no relevant financial disclosures.
