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"Food noise" refers to intrusive thoughts about and cravings for food, whether or not a person is hungry. The phenomenon has become widely discussed on social media, in traditional media and in commercials for GLP-1 receptor agonist weight-loss medications. Because the term has only emerged in recent years, not much is known about who experiences food noise, and there is not even a universally accepted scientific definition.

In a new study, Penn State researchers sought to identify who experiences food noise and how widespread it is.

"Understanding food noise is the first step to managing it," said Daisuke Hayashi, a postdoctoral fellow in nutritional sciences and lead author of the study, explaining that identifying who experiences food noise may help researchers better understand and manage it.

In the study recently published in Obesity Science and Practice, the researchers found that 18% of people in the United States reported frequent or constant food noise and that women, younger adults, people of Asian descent and individuals who have used GLP-1 medications were all more likely to report frequent food noise than others in the study. Only 17% of study participants reported never experiencing food noise.

For the study, the researchers contributed a question to the 2026 Society of Behavioral Medicine Omnibus Survey , an online survey of 1,000 adults who were roughly demographically representative of the population of the United States.

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