Therapy for Food Noise: Understanding Food Noise, GLP-1s and Constant Thoughts About Food

As a counsellor working with a broad range of eating distress, I often hear about experiences of food noise. The term is popular now, but what does it actually mean?

Food noise can involve persistent thoughts about food, cravings, anxieties about eating, food rules, worries about weight, or constantly thinking about what you can or can’t eat. It can take up a huge amount of mental space and significantly impact quality of life.

Food noise is now associated with GLP-1 weight-loss injections, and anecdotally, people say they find some relief from food noise this way. However, this needs further exploration to understand this fully. Whether taking GLP-1s or not, there can be further work to do to reduce food noise and to find more peace with food. 

Illustration by maulana ahmad on Unsplash

​What is food noise?

There are many ways food noise can show up, but it may involve:
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• Worries and anxieties about food and eating
• Internal conflicts over what to eat or what not to eat
• Rules about food and eating
• Focussing on calories or other measures
• Difficulty concentrating because of thoughts about food
• Feeling unable to ignore hunger signals
• Concerns about weight gain
• Guilty thoughts and feelings after eating
• Thinking about ways to compensate for eating
• Pressure to eat “normally”
• Feeling out of control around certain foods
• Cravings that feel overwhelming
• Feeling “addicted” to food
• Constantly thinking about your next meal or snack
• Feeling as though different parts of you are arguing about food

Thoughts about food and eating can be common, but it’s when they become persistent and cause distress, this can be an issue. Worrying about food all the time is exhausting and has an impact on mood and mental health. Sometimes it’s accompanied by body image concerns, and critical thoughts and low self-worth too.

Where does the term “food noise” come from?

The term has become popular in the last few years, though it’s certainly not a new concept, as people have struggled with this kind of distress around eating for a long time. The growth of the term “food noise” is in line with the growth of GLP-1 weight loss medication, with pharmaceutical companies adopting this as part of their marketing strategies (you can read more about this here).

It’s clearly a term which resonates with many people, as it’s never fully explained, everyone just seems to get it. Food noise is now talked about as something that can be “treated”, which was the intention of the pharmaceutical industry. The solution to be sold, of course, is GLP-1s. This is not about our health, it’s about profit.
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GLP-1 weight loss injections don’t “treat” food noise, they mask it. Though this can feel like a relief and may be a short-term respite, it doesn’t get to the root of what is causing the food noise.

What causes food noise?

Our thoughts, feelings and behaviours around food develop through a complex combination of experiences and influences throughout our lives.
Our relationships with food are shaped by:

• Our experiences of food during childhood
• Relationships with parents and caregivers
• Family attitudes towards food, weight and bodies
• Dieting and restriction
• Trauma and abuse
• Appearance-related bullying
• Weight stigma and diet culture
• Social media and advertising
• Cultural ideas about what bodies are supposed to look like
• Neurodivergence
• Anxiety and emotional distress
• Poverty and food insecurity
• Minority stress and other systemic inequalities
• Experiences of having our bodies judged or criticised

 
A recent research paper (Wylie et al., 2026) highlighted some of the factors influencing food noise, including: being hungry, feeling of being “addicted” and being out of control around food, and the “suppression of thoughts about food”. Suppression of thoughts means that the thoughts of food itself may not be the issue, but rather the conflict and rules in response to those thoughts.
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This is something I see regularly in practice, with many people feeling like they have an internal battle in their heads. This can sound like “you can’t eat that”, “you shouldn’t eat those foods”, “you’re too fat”, etc. This can cause confusion, distress and frustration, and may also lead to disordered eating. It can also risk turning into a pattern or cycle, which may result in chronic (yo-yo) dieting or binge eating.

Food noise and binge eating

Food noise can be experienced by people with disordered eating, binge eating, but also by those who have dieted a lot throughout their lives. Some people may not describe this as binge eating but instead call it “overeating” or feeling out of control, addicted, not able to trust themselves, etc.

Binge Eating Disorder is a diagnosable eating disorder based on severity and frequency of symptoms. Counsellors and therapists don’t diagnose people, and personally, in my work I tend not to focus on labels (though I know this is helpful for some). I feel that anyone who thinks they struggle with any kind of binge eating is worthy of help, and any kind of eating distress is valid even if it doesn’t tick the eating disorder boxes.

It’s important with binge eating to consider triggers and underlying need for the behaviour. For some people, binge eating can be connected to emotions – “emotional eating”, which often means looking for a way to self-soothe with food. Others binge in part due to restriction too, for example when trying to diet/restrict in the daytime or for a few days, with then binge eating being the rebound of this. Further diets or weight loss interventions (including GLP-1s) will only make this worse and keep the cycle going.
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You can read more about binge eating here.

Food noise and diet culture

Research has shown that food noise is associated with dietary restraint, e.g. dieting, cutting out food groups, calorie restriction, etc. Diet culture and weight stigma are prevalent in our society, often not even questioned. It perpetuates the “thin ideal”, i.e. thin is good/healthy, fat is bad/unhealthy. Over the years, diet culture has morphed but still always remains in different forms. Weight Watchers, for example have shifted through different diets/interventions, now adopting weight loss injections into their plans in order to keep their place in the market. Again, it’s important to remember that this is about making money, not our health.
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The lines between disordered eating, dieting and “health” are increasingly blurred as diet culture now becomes more about “wellness”. But it’s all the same stuff hidden in new language. Weight loss injections are part of this, positioned as a medication to “treat obesity”. Part of the marketing strategy by pharmaceutical companies is to sell body size as a problem to cure.

It’s important, if considering taking GLP-1 weight loss injections, to make an informed choice, and part of that is knowing that there are alternative options. It may be beneficial to try therapy for food noise before deciding to take a GLP-1, or some people benefit from these both at the same time. Weight loss injections are appetite suppressants, so may join the restrictive pattern of eating. For those with binge eating, it may feel like it’s helping in the short term, but food noise and/or binge eating will return at some point. It’s likely to be more harmful in the long run.

How can therapy help with food noise?

Therapy for food noise isn’t about learning to control your thoughts about food or changing how you eat. It’s much more about understanding what’s behind it.

Therapy can involve exploring where these critical or conflicting thoughts stem from, unpacking old narratives around eating and weight, as well as tending to your concerns now and for the future. It’s often said that therapy for eating disorders isn’t all about food, it’s the same for food noise – it isn’t actually all about food. It can also be about life experiences, childhood, relationships, diet culture, sense of self and more.

Therapy for food noise may involve curiosity and challenge about food and eating, for example “good/bad foods” and “shoulds/should nots”. It can also be helpful to explore anxieties around body image and weight, and health. It’s important to consider how diet culture has influenced your relationship with food and your body. Sometimes food noise is built from years of internalised narratives of diet culture, the thin ideal and weight stigma.
 
I see the whole person, and socio-cultural factors and wider contexts. This is important in being able to work from the roots of food noise, as this can help bring more freedom and peace around eating.

If you’re struggling with food noise, body image or worries about your weight, counselling can be a place to start making sense of what’s going on. I offer online counselling for adults across the UK, and you can get in touch to arrange a free 15-minute introductory call to see whether working together might be helpful.
 
 

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