Food Noise: Causes, Effects, and Case Study - Part 2

6 minutes

This blog post is part two of a three-part series on food noise. If you haven't read the first post yet, begin here.

Your Genetics

Just as some people grow tall and others are shorter, we all have different weight set points where our bodies are most comfortable. Additionally, our bodies digest and metabolize things differently. Then there are blood sugar, hormones, and insulin, which can be both genetic and influenced by our own lifestyles, affecting our appetite, feelings of satiety, and cognitive messages about food. The bottom line is there are biological components to each individual's degree of food noise.

Societal Pressure and Food Noise

Our culture bombards us with everything related to food. We're inundated with advertisements showcasing tantalizing treats, social media posts displaying gourmet meals or mouthwatering desserts, and constant messages categorizing foods as "good" or "bad," “healthy” or “unhealthy.” If you struggle with weight or body image, you might intentionally follow accounts offering dietary advice or consume content from podcasts, books, or blogs (like this one). While well-intentioned, this exposure can inadvertently place your brain front and center on the very issue you're trying to eradicate.

Restriction, Deprivation, and the Minnesota Starvation Experiment

Restriction – which comes in many forms - is the primary reason people experience excessive food noise. I'm not suggesting that those with food noise are necessarily at a calorie deficit, but many engage in various forms of restriction (e.g., intermittent fasting, delaying meals because of a dinner date, allowing oneself only certain foods or food groups, or avoiding eating in public to avoid attention to your food choices and body). Any form of self-imposed food limitation constitutes restriction. You might be thinking, "Without these restrictions, I'd never stop eating." This fear is understandable for someone who is constantly thinking about food or has had previous episodes of binging and yet these self-imposed rules perpetuate the food noise creating a vicious and endless cycle.

The form of restriction that most people use the term for involves successfully maintaining a calorie deficit over time (a.k.a. being on a diet). The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, conducted in the 1940s, offers invaluable insights into this phenomenon. Participants with normal weight and eating habits were placed on a calorie-restricted diet. As time progressed, their behavior became increasingly erratic. They guarded their food, grew agitated and became aggressive over receiving unequal portions, and exhibited unusual mealtime behaviors, such as licking plates, chewing for excessively long periods, and manipulating food to seem more abundant. Additionally, they became obsessed with food, gushing over cookbooks, daydreaming about meals, and finding joy and interest solely in their next meal.

The most striking outcome relevant to our discussion is that once they were able to resume normal eating, their intense food noise persisted, and they struggled to recognize hunger cues, often consuming multiple meals in one sitting: a.k.a. binge eating. Some developed binge-eating and purging behaviors, with one even requiring hospitalization after a binge episode. Even after five months of refeeding, these behaviors and the incessant food noise continued.

This study underscores a crucial point: prolonged restriction can induce undesirable and constant intrusive food noise that doesn't necessarily dissipate when eating is no longer restricted.

Personal History and Food Noise

Growing up with food rules, restrictions, or messages about body weight can also contribute to food noise. If you've been taught from a young age to avoid certain foods or used eating as a way to soothe yourself, these early experiences can deeply influence your current relationship with food. Hearing parents discuss weight in unhealthy ways, observing them turn to food for comfort, being cautioned against eating certain foods due to fear of weight gain, and being compared to siblings’ or friends’ eating habits or bodies can all contribute to the development of food noise.

The Shame Factor

Shame around your body or food choices also amplifies food noise. Consuming something deemed "bad,” "unhealthy," not aligned with your diet, or considered something you "shouldn't" eat can trigger feelings of guilt and shame, intensifying your preoccupation. This cycle of shame and restriction is incredibly challenging to break.

An Example illustrating Excessive Food Noise vs Information Based Food Noise

Considering all the contributors to unhealthy food noise I've described, it's remarkable that some people don't experience it given our society's obsession with food and body image. Even the body positivity movement has individuals frequently discussing body-related topics. This isn't to diminish the movement's importance but to emphasize that having significant food noise doesn't make a person abnormal or signify they have a disorder. It's a natural byproduct of various factors colliding. Below is a comparison illustrating the experiences of two individuals who experience food noise differently (part 3 of the series, if you wish to skip the example):

Jess, who grew up feeling the need to sneak food to avoid getting in trouble or being shamed, turned to food for comfort, and has been on and off diets for as long as she can remember. She is desperately trying to lose weight.

Kate, was brought up with minimal food-related discussions besides “what’s for dinner.” She received a lot of family support and had parents who were able to hold space for her emotions and teach her how to cope with them. Despite this supportive environment, Kate is not fully immune to societal pressures and also has concerns about her health. She is loosely trying to lose some excess weight.

Jess's Day - It's Sunday evening, and Jess is at a birthday party that she promised herself she would be ‘good’ at and not have any sweets. Despite initially declining the cake, she realizes it’s from a new bakery that everyone's been raving about and decides to have a small slice. That small slice quickly turns into seconds, and Jess becomes angry with herself for what she perceives as a loss of control. In response, she decides to go all out and takes some leftover cake home with her. Consuming the cake while driving home only increases her feelings of shame, and she continues to numb herself by eating sweets when she arrives home. She reassures herself that she will restart her diet tomorrow.

Exhausted from lack of sleep, Jess is determined to get back on track and wakes up early to go to the gym. She has only coffee for breakfast and opts for a vegetable-heavy salad for lunch. As she buys her very ‘sensible’ dinner, she feels relief that she is sticking to her plan. However, after quickly finishing dinner, it's still too early for bed, and she feels unsatisfied. Her inner dialogue becomes overwhelmingly loud. This leads her to find herself in her car, eating a mixture of sugary foods from the nearby food mart. At this point, Jess doesn’t enjoy the food as she has dissociated from the experience. She ends the day late again, feeling tired, guilty, sad, ashamed, physically uncomfortable, and vows to do better tomorrow.

Throughout the day, Jess's thoughts revolved around food and her body. Even moments when she felt prideful about her ‘discipline’ at the gym and her earlier food choices were contributing factors to her food noise. Additionally, her fatigue from being up late and her body having to work overtime to digest all she ate the night before further fueled her intrusive food thoughts.

Kate's Day - Kate, who attended the same party as Jess, has a small slice of cake, feeling a twinge of guilt about it not aligning with her health goals, but decides that it's okay since it's a special occasion. She prioritizes getting enough rest and goes to bed as soon as she gets home to avoid feeling fatigued the next day. In the morning, she opts for a brisk walk instead of going to the gym, recognizing that she got less sleep than her body is accustomed to. For breakfast, she has a banana and coffee, snacks on trail mix mid-morning, and chooses a sandwich for lunch. For dinner, she selects a meal that aligns with her desire to feel healthier but doesn’t deprive herself either. While eating dinner and watching TV, she notices her fatigue tempting her to indulge in sweets. She recognizes her fatigue as a sign of needing sleep and instead chooses to go to bed. She does take a couple of bites of ice cream on her way as a small treat without any regrets or feelings of failure.

Throughout her day, Kate didn’t experience any food noise she perceived as negative. Any chatter she experienced was considered information and met with decisions to alleviate them.

Let’s Be Realistic

It’s true that Kate benefits from a naturally more slender physique and grew up in a family without food restrictions or weight discussions, giving her advantages over Jess, who has a shorter frame, larger bone structure, and a mother who hid snacks during her childhood. If you find yourself resonating with Jess and feeling it's unfair, your feelings are entirely valid. It's unfortunate that societal ideals place pressure on us to look a certain way when the effort required isn’t equal.

This also illustrates how our thoughts about food can be exacerbated by our habits around food. Henry Ford famously once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. If you believe that there is nothing you can do to quiet the food noise, you're right. However, if you recognize that various factors, some within your control, influence your food noise and believe you can work to address them, you're also right.

In conclusion, by understanding these factors - genetics, societal pressure, restriction, personal history, and shame - we can start to grasp why one individual may endure heightened food noise while another does not.

Part 3: Strategies for Reducing Food Noise

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