Michael Monostra , 2025-05-21 12:50:00
Key takeaways:
- Of the top 100 TikTok videos about “food noise,” 70.7% include testimony from a patient.
- Medications were discussed in 49.5% of videos, with many of those videos referring to GLP-1s.
Many videos on the social media platform TikTok that are focused on obsessive thoughts about food include patient perspectives, with some discussing the use of GLP-1s to manage those thoughts, researchers reported.
In a poster presented at the European Congress on Obesity, Daisuke Hayashi, MS, a doctoral candidate in the department of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University, defined “food noise” as heightened or persistent manifestations of food cue reactivity, which can lead to food-related intrusive thoughts and maladaptive eating behavior. After analyzing Google Trends data, Hayashi said food noise began to rise in search engine results in 2023 and continued to increase over time. Food noise reached its peak in Google searches in April.
“[Food noise] is everywhere — online, on the news and in everyday conversations,” Hayashi told Healio. “Analyzing these videos offered a way to examine what kind of message is being shared online about food noise, who is talking about it and what is the apparent goal of such videos.”
Researchers analyzed the top 100 TikTok videos listed under #FoodNoise as of June 24, 2024. Demographics about the video creators, perceived purpose of the videos, topics mentioned in the videos and illustrative quotes from each video’s transcription were assessed.
There were 99 videos included in the analysis. Of the video creators, 82.8% were aged 30 years or older, 91.9% were women and 22.2% were health care professionals.
The percentage of videos that aimed to inform the audience was 54.5%. Of the videos, 70.7% included patient testimony. Food noise was consistently defined in 77.8% of the videos. The proportion of creators who viewed food noise negatively was 85.9%, with only one video painting food noise in a positive light. Just 5.1% of videos included references to scientific literature.
The most common theme mentioned in videos was medication in 49.5%, followed by food in 42.4%, diet or dietary pattern in 17.2% and behavioral strategy to manage food noise in 16.2%. Of the videos that discussed medications, 91.8% talked about GLP-1s and other incretin-based drugs such as semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy, Novo Nordisk) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound, Eli Lilly).
“TikTok has recently flourished as an online community where people experiencing food noise share their experiences,” Hayashi said. “Most of the videos we analyzed were patient testimonies reporting how food noise feels and the ways in which it can negatively affect people’s lives. There was also frequent mention of GLP-1s, which content creators reported as drugs that can make a big difference in managing their food noise.”
Hayashi said health care professionals can use study data to improve their understanding about how food noise affects patients and develop interventions to potentially modify it.
“Our laboratory plans to move beyond online reports and systematically analyze patients’ experiences to understand what they mean when they speak of food noise,” Hayashi said. “We will employ qualitative and quantitative methods to further explore what food noise is from a patient-centered perspective.”
For more information:
Daisuke Hayashi, MS, can be reached at dbh5557@psu.edu.
Sources/Disclosures
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Hayashi D, et al. Poster Abstract 493. Presented at: European Congress on Obesity, May 11-14, 2025; Malaga, Spain.
Disclosures:
Hayashi reports no relevant financial disclosures.
