When you’re hungry, it’s normal to find yourself thinking about what you’re going to eat next.

But for some people, thoughts of food and eating can feel constant – even when they’re not physically hungry. This experience has been termed “food noise”.

For someone who struggles with food noise, this might mean thinking repeatedly about the next meal, feeling distracted by snacks in the house or finding it hard to ignore food cues such as adverts or supermarket displays. The experience can be exhausting.

But food noise should not be taken to mean that every thought or craving for food is a problem. Hunger, fullness, cravings, anticipation of eating and pleasure from food are all normal parts of our appetite system.

The goal for people who struggle with food noise should not be to eliminate all food-related chatter from their lives. Rather, it’s about reducing the harmful thoughts about food that are persistent, intrusive, distressing and disruptive.

Understanding food noise

In appetite science, “food noise” encompasses a mix of mechanisms and processes. This includes hunger and satiety, cravings, food reward, emotional eating, control over eating and cue-reactivity (a heightened, automatic reaction to seeing or smelling food).

So, food noise is not one single thing. Two people may both report experiencing “food noise”, but the underlying causes may be different.

For one person, food noise may reflect an internal hunger signal after skipping a meal. For someone else, it might be food cravings triggered by stress or tiredness. And for yet another, it may feel closer to distressing, intrusive thoughts or a fear of losing control over eating.

While it’s common to experience food noise, it becomes concerning if it starts to........

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