By Graham Kingma, HCA Registered Health Coach (HCA-RHC, 1702868). 14 October 2026
If you plan well and still overeat by late afternoon, the cleanest feeding studies suggest the food on your plate does more of the work than most people assume. Here's what they found, and what they can't prove.
What does "food noise" feel like?
"Food noise" isn't a research measure. It's the everyday name for frequent, nagging thoughts about food. It often shows up mid-afternoon. You ate well all morning. Then there's food nearby, you eat it, and you feel bad about it after.
A lot of people have already tried counting calories or promising to do better next week. I don't think discipline is the whole answer. As a coach, I look at the food first.
Is overeating a willpower problem?
Not only. In 2019, Kevin Hall's team at the US National Institutes of Health fed 20 adults two menus on a research ward, two weeks each. The menus were matched for offered calories, sugar, fat, fibre and salt (as served; a few properties, such as energy density of the solid food, weren't matched), and people ate as much or as little as they liked. On the ultra-processed menu they ate about 508 more calories a day and gained about 0.9 kg. On the unprocessed menu they lost about the same. Both menus were rated similarly pleasant, and hunger and fullness scores didn't differ.
Willpower wasn't what the researchers changed. The food was.
This study has limits. It had 20 people, two weeks on each menu, young adults (average age about 31), in a hospital, not a kitchen at home.
Why does some food make it easier to eat more?
Researchers keep finding two things that matter. One is how much energy each bite carries. The other is how fast you can eat it.
Energy density. In short lab studies, Barbara Rolls's team found people tend to eat a fairly stable weight of food. When each gram carries more energy, they take in more energy, without deciding to.
Texture and eating speed. In a 2023 Dutch trial, when energy density was matched, hard versus soft texture changed intake by hundreds of calories in a day, and the processing label alone didn't. A 2025 trial kept every meal ultra-processed and still found about 369 fewer calories a day on the version that was slower to eat. Both were small, short trials in young adults, and the 2025 trial found no difference in body weight.
So I wouldn't say processed food always makes you overeat. What the research shows is narrower. In feeding trials, food that is soft, dense and quick to eat led people to eat more without trying.
Does this apply after 50?
Probably in part, but the trials can't say for certain. Most of these studies used younger adults and small groups, over short periods. A feeding lab isn't six months of real life, and short studies can't show what happens over months. Stress, short sleep and alcohol may play a part too; these trials didn't test them.
Who paid for this research?
Funding varies: the 2019 and 2023 trials were publicly funded; the 2025 texture trial was co-financed by food companies, including Unilever and Nestlé. Funded isn't the same as false, but you deserve to know. When you see a headline about a food study, it helps to ask what kind of study it was, how big the effect was, who paid for it, and what people ate instead.
What can you do with this?
For me personally, when I swapped ultra-processed carbs for good-quality real food and healthy fats, I still had some cravings early on, every now and then. I found small high-fat snacks, like good-quality olives, stopped my cravings until the next meal, without the downsides those carbs gave me. Olives are energy-dense, so that isn't what the trials above tested. It's simply what worked for me; your body may respond differently.
Looking at the food itself is a fair place to start. The next part takes a plan, not more willpower. A plan might look at what food is close by in the afternoon, what your usual snacks are, how fast you eat them, and how you slept the night before. None of this is medical advice, and I don't diagnose or treat anything. If you take medication, decisions about it stay with your prescriber.
Men, if you've never thought of coaching as something for you, it is. And it's for anyone who's tired of blaming themselves.
If you'd like help building that plan, a free call, 15 minutes, is the place to start. No pressure.
You're the climber. I'm your coach.
Sources
Hall KD et al. Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial. Cell Metabolism 2019;30(1):67-77. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008 (randomised crossover, n=20, NIH-funded).
Bell EA, Castellanos VH, Pelkman CL, Thorwart ML, Rolls BJ. Energy density of foods affects energy intake in normal-weight women. Am J Clin Nutr 1998;67(3):412-420. PMID 9497184 (lab feeding study, n=18 women, 2 days per condition; NIH-funded). Rolls BJ. The relationship between dietary energy density and energy intake. Physiol Behav 2009;97(5):609-615. PMID 19303887 (narrative review).
Lasschuijt M et al. Speed limits: the effects of industrial food processing and food texture on daily energy intake. Eur J Nutr 2023;62:2949-2962. doi:10.1007/s00394-023-03202-z (randomised crossover, n=18, one day per arm; preliminary).
Forde CG et al. Eating rate has sustained effects on energy intake from ultraprocessed diets. Am J Clin Nutr 2026;123(4):101122 (online 2025). doi:10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.11.012. PMID 41314613 (randomised crossover, n=41, industry co-financed).