Nutritional clinic closes, UH professor vows to maintain dedication

Caryn Honig has experienced Houston’s relationship with eating disorders as a patient, a scholar at UH and a community leader who operated a nutritional counseling clinic.

For more than 20 years, The Healthy Weigh helped people with eating disorders establish healthy attitudes toward food and become more conscious of their well-being. The clinic, which closed on May 31, was one of the first available resources in Houston specifically dedicated to helping those with life-threatening diseases like anorexia and bulimia.

Over time, The Healthy Weigh grew to be the largest outpatient eating disorder clinic in Texas and one of the largest in the nation, Honig said. But her dedication to her family meant that The Healthy Weigh could no longer be active.

“My mother recently passed away, and I need to be available for my father through this difficult time,” Honig said. “My parents were there when I was very ill; they never gave up on me. It’s my turn to give back as my father goes through this journey.”

The Healthy Weigh’s services, offered by dietitians and therapists specializing in nutrition, included therapy centered on individual medical nutrition, free weekly support groups, appointments offering meal support and group sessions for couples, families and friends.

Dietitian Tessa Pack helped clients by building a consistent eating pattern while addressing negative thoughts about body image.

“Seeking help is so important when you realize that you have a problem with food,” Pack said. “The longer an eating disorder is ignored, the more powerful it gets and the harder it is to overcome.”

Pack said the most identifiable symptom of an eating disorder is a drastic change in weight or a pattern of weight fluctuations. Others include an affinity for calories and fats, obsession with continuous exercise, visible food restriction and self-starvation.

Results from a college-oriented National Eating Disorders Association’s survey in 2013 said “full-blown eating disorders typically begin between 18 and 21 years of age.”

The survey also found that 35 percent of “normal” dieters will progress to pathological dieting, with 20 to 25 percent developing partial or full-syndrome eating disorders.

Honig recovered from multiple eating disorders in 1983 with the help of a registered dietitian and recognizes the need for more awareness. She urges UH students struggling with eating disorders to seek appropriate help on campus.

“My parents were there when I was very ill; they never gave up on me. It’s my turn to give back as my father goes through this journey.” 

— Caryn Honig, on the clinic’s closure

Amanda Holben, another former dietitian of The Healthy Weigh, suggested that students should start with prevention.

“UH students can educate themselves about the shortcomings of all diets and the distorted images that impact our society’s views of ‘ideal beauty,’” Holben said.

The Health Center Psychiatry Clinic on campus features board-certified physicians that can evaluate and provide medication and referrals to students battling eating disorders.

Honig believes health care at UH can better help students through letting them reach out to eating disorder specialists such as dietitians and eating disorder support groups.

Pack, Holben and their fellow dietitians at The Healthy Weigh have now joined other practices or rented spaces of their own to continue working with their clients.

For Honig, UH is home. She hopes to continue helping students wrestling with eating disorders, no matter how challenging.

“I know that each person’s story and recovery is their own and is different from anyone else’s story and recovery,” Honig said. “I have to help clients find their recovery from within themselves.”

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