Excess Motivational Energy (EME) is an interesting term. It arises from a conflict that cannot be resolved. For example, if you’re in a “fight or flight” situation, you might prefer to do neither, but that is not an option.

The frustration that arises from being limited to suboptimal choices results in a buildup of mental anguish we know as stress. Just like the fight-or-flight scenario, that stress cannot just build but must be discharged.

The discharge of excess motivational energy is called displacement. In stressed animals, the EME is displaced through pacing, scratching, biting, and other repetitive and at times self-injurious behaviors.

In humans, the response to stress is a desire to be soothed. When that soothing is accomplished with food treats, it can lead to children repeatedly turning to comfort foods to soothe stress. And that can lead to an eating addiction.

That’s where Dr. Robert Pretlow comes in. The publisher of AddictionNews, Dr. Pretlow is a pediatrician, an electrical engineer, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatricians. He set out decades ago to understand why some children became obese. Through moderated but anonymous message boards, he enabled children to explain their feelings about being overweight, their motivations, and their strategies for coping.

This research resulted in the book, Overweight: What Kids Say, and what they say is that eating is a way of dealing with stress, including the stress of being overweight. They feel trapped in a vicious cycle of stress due to being overweight and relieving that stress by eating. The longer the cycle continues, the more problems result, including self-loathing, depression, and self-harming behaviors.

The book also led to a website, Childhood Obesity News, our sister publication, which covers all the latest news in childhood obesity causes and treatments.

As the technology developed from message boards to smartphones, Dr. Pretlow tried to develop a way to use smartphone technology to help kids lose weight. The current version of his smartphone app is called BrainWeighve. It has been shown in clinical trials to be effective against childhood obesity. Without drugs. Without surgery.

BrainWeighve is designed to be used by medical professionals who prescribe it as a treatment for obesity. It involves daily weigh-ins and monitoring of essential health statistics. Through the app, patients are able to communicate with a trained professional every day during the prescription period.

For adults, the BrainWeighve app operates with or without a prescription from a medical professional. Adult users are able to monitor their own weight and vital statistics, and customize the app to suit their needs.

How does the app help people lose weight? Users create a list of problem foods, then withdraw from them one at a time. They also maintain a “dread list” of situations that cause them stress. The user makes “action plans,” in advance, for how they are going to deal with that stress without eating.

At the moment you’re hit with an urge, your phone presents several suggestions that you designed to keep you from eating. They can be as simple as holding your breath or squeezing your earlobe. Options also include an “emergency button” that implements a prearranged plan such as calling a sponsor. App users are able to urge surf just like cigarette smokers switching to chewing gum.

Some of the action plans users set up are more advanced. They almost all include physically active diversions, such as walking, running, cycling, swimming, and other sports. These substitute stress-relieving activities have the advantage of burning calories and improving health.

But even sedentary activities such as sewing, painting, crossword puzzles, video games, and reading can be used to rechannel EME away from eating and into non-destructive diversions. Using self-directed user design, BrainWeighve puts cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) into the hands of the user, available 24/7/365, with doctor support when prescribed.

Dr. Pretlow’s realization that both substance use disorders and behavioral disorders share this common origin in the need to displace stress led to the start of AddictionNews in 2023 to broaden the scope of his research to all addictions, behavioral or chemical.

This research is summarized in Dr. Pretlow’s paper, “A Unified Theory of Addiction,” which he just presented at the Global Conference on Addiction and Psychiatry (GAP26) held last month in London. It is possible that his success with using a smartphone app to treat eating addiction can be modified and used for other addictions, providing a single treatment that involves neither drugs nor surgery to accomplish these important, life-enhancing goals.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published September 25, 2026.

Sources:

“A Unified Theory of Addiction,” a presentation by Dr. Robert Pretlow for the Global Conference on Addiction and Psychiatry (GAP 2026), August 25, 2026.

“A Unified Theory of Addiction,” Robert Pretlow, preprint #5, available at Quios.

“Book review: Overweight: What Kids Say,” BCMJ, December 2011.

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