It’s been talked about for a long time. But recently, thanks to the spread of weight loss drugs for diabetes and obesity, “Food Noise” has taken hold. And not just in the real world, but also in the virtual world of health and wellness conversations on social media.
This term, which we could translate into Italian as “food noise”, tends to describe obsessive and repetitive thoughts about eating. But there is no official definition of what constitutes food noise even though it is adopted by many people and is also often used in marketing terms.
What to do? An answer comes from research coordinated by Travis Masterson, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, published on Nutrition and Diabetes.
Analysis on TikTok
The study examined how the term is discussed on TikTok and what information is offered on the topic. The research team created a new TikTok account in June 2024. At the time, there were over 3,600 videos tagged with the hashtag #foodnoise. Researchers analyzed the 100 most popular videos to understand the online debate about “food noise”: who was talking about it, how they were talking about it, what they were saying, and other related topics. They also compared the online videos to the team’s proposed definition of “food noise,” previously published in the journal Nutrients, to determine whether the way people talked about “food noise” aligned with their theoretical definition.
After excluding one duplicate video, they found that the remaining videos were created primarily by women aged 30 and older. Over 70% of the videos were personal testimonials, while 22% were created by healthcare professionals. Over 85% of the videos described “food noise” in a negative way, that is, as obsessive, incessant, intrusive thoughts about food. Nearly 94% of the videos that provided a definition of “food noise” described it in a manner consistent with the theoretical definition currently developed by researchers. “Food noise” was most commonly associated with candy, sweets and fast food.
Based on these online testimonials, people who experience Food Noise seem to feel that their lives revolve around food. The vast majority of content creators described the “food noise” as overwhelming, saying things like
“It’s this overwhelming worry about what to eat, when to eat, how to satisfy your cravings. It is different from physical hunger and occurs independently of physical hunger.’
How to interpret the data
The team found that most of the videos were personal testimonies that described the “food noise” as something negative and distressing, a relentless worry about what you eat that persists regardless of physical hunger. Nearly half of the videos mentioned GLP-1 drugs and how they acted like a mute button, quieting the brain and the resulting “food noise.”
“What we see in the videos, for example, is that people say that ‘food noise’ is not only problematic for their eating behavior and health, but distracts them from other activities. It could impact their effectiveness at work or their ability to have the cognitive resources to exercise or spend quality time with family.”
comments Masterson in a University note.
Although the term “food noise” is new, Masterson said it may be related to an existing line of research in the nutrition and behavioral literature called reactivity to food stimuli. Food responsiveness describes how the mind and body respond to internal and external cues that the mind associates with food, creating the desire to eat, such as a rumbling stomach or craving popcorn when entering a movie theater. However, the concept of reactivity to food stimuli is not a widely known or used expression, even among nutritionists or doctors. The analysis, as first author Daisuke Hayashi recalls, made it possible to understand food noise from the point of view of real people.
“Often, people who struggle with weight or nutrition are not listened to. They are told it is an individual failure or labeled as lacking willpower, when this is rarely the case.”
is his comment. The research should now proceed with an analysis of comments on social media videos regarding food noise, to understand how people react to content on the topic.
