The ubiquity of the obesity condition in the United States, Europe and other regions with developed economies will associate to a significant adverse impact on public health. Numerous data indicate that social, behavioral, neuroendocrine, and metabolic factors may encourage com-pulsive eating behaviors thus increasing the risk of obesity. Several pathological conditions overlap with excess weight. Among the most common, there are binge eating disorder (BED) and food addiction (FA), which share several neurobiological and behavioral aspects with sub-stance addictions. BED has many features in common with addictive be-havior, such as loss of control and need to frequently repeat the dysfunc-tional pattern despite negative consequences. The food addiction hypothesis assumes that exposure to highly palatable foods alters the reward circuits of brain, resulting in a behavioral pheno-type similar to substance addiction and facilitating dysfunctional eating behaviors, such as binge eating crises. In this review, over 100 publica-tions, researched on MEDLINE from 2000 until march 2021, were included since they evaluate neuroendocrine changes, emotional homeostatic fac-tors and the reward circuit, associating them with exposure to highly pal-atable foods, loss of control, the way we eat, the increase in impulsiveness and the inability to change eating behavior despite the negative conse-quences related to overweight and obesity. Finally, understanding the underlying neurobiological circuits compul-sive eating behaviors and food addiction could result in a great thera-peutic potential for patients suffering from ailments nutrition and obesity.