Table 1.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Operational criteria	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Population	All age groups were allowed (children, adolescents and adults) No superior age limit was specified The main diagnoses were food addiction, eating addiction, orthorexia nervosa. Obesity, overweight, metabolic syndrome were accepted only as comorbidities. Other eating disorders (binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa etc) were allowed as secondary diagnoses Diagnosis should be based on criteria specified by the authors within that paper. No limitation of the diagnostic criteria was included, therefore DSM-based or otherwise fundamented criteria were allowed	Clinical/epidemiological studies that did not specified age limits for their samples The presence of severe somatic or psychiatric co-morbidities with significant impact over cognition, mood, behavior, and overall functionality (e.g., psychotic disorders, refractory bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder, severe neurocognitive disorders)
Intervention	Any type of reviewing method was allowed (systematic, narrative, meta-analytic, mega-analytic, network meta-analytic) Any type of study (clinical/preclinical) was admitted if it corresponded to the pre-defined objective of this review	Studies with unspecified design, population, or statistical methods that have been applied Reviews that did not specified search paradigm, interval for papers collection, criteria for inclusion/exclusion, or those that have used overinclusive search paradigm that did not allow for a distinction between food addiction and other eating behavior dysfunctions
Environment	Both in-patient and out-patient regimen	Unspecified environment
Outcomes	Diagnostic criteria, epidemiology (prevalence, incidence, risk factors), pathophysiology (neurobiological, psychological), and treatment (efficacy, tolerability) of food addiction	All researches that have been using poorly defined outcomes or instruments that have not been validated were excluded. Reviews without clearly pre-defined outcomes were also excluded
Study design	Clinical trials, epidemiological studies, systematic reviews, narrative reviews, meta-analyses. Longitudinal and transversal, retrospective or prospective studies. Animal model studies. Only peer-reviewed papers were allowed	Studies with unspecified or insufficiently defined design Case reports, case series Non-peer-reviewed papers
Language	Any language of publication was admitted if the in-extenso published paper was available