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By Maria Azzurra Volpe
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Do you often reach for a snack after a meal even though you feel full? Or find yourself craving food throughout the day despite not being hungry? You may be experiencing "food noise," a phenomenon that affects nearly one in five people in the U.S. but doesn't yet have a universally accepted scientific definition.
A new study from Penn State, published in Obesity Science and Practice, has found that 18 percent of people in the United States report frequent or constant food noise, and some demographics are more affected than others.
Daisuke Hayashi, a postdoctoral fellow in nutritional sciences and the study's lead author, told Newsweek that scientists currently know very little about what happens in the brain during food noise.
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One hypothesis is that people who experience food noise may have heightened reactions to cues that signal opportunities to seek out and consume food, whether from seeing a fast-food advertisement while scrolling online, feeling their stomach rumble or holding learned associations, such as craving popcorn when watching a movie.
"Think of it like a hypersensitive smoke alarm that goes off too easily and won't stop beeping, to the point that it might become disruptive," Hayashi said.
In the 2026 Society of Behavioral Medicine Omnibus Survey, an online survey of 1,000 adults representative of the population of the United States, researchers asked participants, "How often do you experience 'Food Noise'?" on a scale from 1 (never experience food noise) to 5 (always experience it), and the results were surprising.
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What the Study Found
The findings indicated that women were about 1.8 times more likely to report frequent food noise than men. They also showed that younger adults reported a higher level of food noise compared to older demographics, and people who identified as Asian were twice as likely as other races to report the phenomenon.
Respondents who reported losing control of their eating were nearly six times more likely than the average person in the survey to experience frequent or constant food noise. Current and former GLP-1 users were also about 1.5 times more likely than average to report frequent food noise.
Some of these results were expected. According to the study, women may experience more food noise than men because they are more likely to attempt to lose weight.
Other results were surprising, and researchers caution against making generalized assumptions based on the findings, particularly regarding Asian participants experiencing more food noise.
"This is something for researchers to look at in the future," Hayashi said. "But there is no existing data or theory to support this result, and we wouldn't want to make generalizations based on one result, especially from a study with only about 50 Asian participants."
More broadly, Hayashi said researchers have several hypotheses for why susceptibility to food noise may vary.
His team's CIRO (Cue-Influencer-Reactivity-Outcome) model proposes that heightened and persistent reactions to food cues may be shaped by a person's genetic makeup, appetitive traits, weight status and differences in levels of and sensitivity to appetite-regulating hormones.
He said food noise could also potentially be triggered or amplified by conflicted attitudes toward food and eating, particularly among chronic dieters who experience strong cravings while trying to restrict their intake.
"Think of it like a constant internal 'debate' or 'tug-of-war' between reasons to eat and not to eat what they crave," he said.
How Food Noise May Affect Weight Loss
Another unexpected result concerned GLP-1s users, although scientists may already have an explanation for it.
"This result could arise from an awareness issue. If GLP-1s reduce food noise, those who use GLP-1s might be hyperaware of any food noise they do experience and, therefore, more likely to report it," said Travis Masterson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences and a co-author of the study.
According to Hayashi, the results of the study debunk the myth that people who carry unwanted body weight lack the willpower to control what they eat.
"When one in five adults says they think about food most or all the time, whether they are hungry or not, is this really a question of willpower? Or are there other forces affecting people's mental and emotional experiences with food? The evidence points strongly to the latter. If you believe food noise is causing problems in your life, talk to your medical provider about what you can do," he said.
Hayashi noted that research on food noise is still in its infancy and said establishing what the phenomenon actually is should be a priority.
"We can't properly study food noise and how to manage it if we are not sure what it is," he said.
He also warned that without a clear definition, there is a risk of over-medicalizing ordinary thoughts about food and encouraging the pursuit of "food silence," potentially leaving people vulnerable to marketing that encourages them to believe they have a problem without a proper medical basis.
Reference
Hayashi, D., and Masterson, T. D. (2026). Prevalence and Correlates of Perceived Food Noise Among U.S. Adults in a Nationally Representative Sample. Obesity Science and Practice, 12. https://doi.org/10.1002/osp4.70201
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kara Dolman and Shakeema Edwards.
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