title: Food Addiction: definition, measurement and prevalence in healthy subjects and in patients with eating disorders.
abstract: The construct of “Food Addiction” (FA) has been introduced in the last decades to better understand abnormal eating patterns
  in obese and overweight people and in patients with Eating Disorders (EDs). Despite a substantial parallelism between drug addiction and FA, there is still no agreement in considering FA an independent ED or a useful convincing concept. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to aggregate available data, in order to increase knowledge about: 1) definition, measurement and general features of FA; 2) prevalence of FA in clinical and non-clinical samples. Available data suggest that FA seems to be a transnosografic construct and exists in all EDs, with higher prevalence in Bulimia Nervosa. Although the discussion on the autonomous diagnosis of FA within EDs remains open, studies have reported that comorbidity between FA and other EDs is associated with worse clinical conditions and symptoms, justifying, as a result, the usefulness of assessing and treating this condition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, European University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Imperatori
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, European University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Mariantonietta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fabbricatore
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, European University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Viviana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vumbaca
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, European University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Innamorati
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, European University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Contardi
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Sciences, European University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Benedetto
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Farina
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D000886:Anthropometry; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D015897:Comorbidity; D066249:Craving; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D059906:Neuroimaging; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D015995:Prevalence; D012201:Reward; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
chemical_list: D004298:Dopamine