Carolyn Vaughn – Nutrition Therapy of Memphis

Carolyn Vaughn

Meet the Team Behind Your Healthier You: Nutrition Therapy of Memphis.

Meet Carolyn Vaughn

RD, LDN

Carolyn Vaughn, RD, LDN, a longtime resident of Memphis, has practiced in various roles as a registered dietitian and functional nutritionist. She educates her community on ways to overcome the effects of chronic disease using nutrition and lifestyle interventions so that each person can experience a life full of energy, vitality and health. Her journey as a dietitian began in college when she had struggled with her weight and discovered that a family history of high cholesterol had not skipped a generation. Carolyn determined that she wanted to help others as well as herself in the battle against obesity and chronic disease. After completing her dietetic internship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, she worked at Baptist Memorial Hospital’s wellness center for three years and discovered during that time that helping people to achieve their health-related goals was not as easy as anticipated. This was during the age of Snack Wells, fat free ice cream and canola oil! With limited success in adjusting food choices (no wonder!) she began to discover the power of habits and behaviors associated with poor health. Realizing that often thin people had different thought patterns surrounding food and meals than those who struggled with their weight, she began to move in the direction of Intuitive Eating as a relevant part of her treatment strategy.

Shortly after her marriage, Carolyn changed career paths and became a clinical dietitian at the local children’s hospital, Le Bonheur, where she specialized in cystic fibrosis, feeding issues and the ketogenic diet for seizure management. It was during her myriad experiences at Le Bonheur that she realized where many of the habits that inhibit success later in life originate. She discovered that the first five years can have long-lasting effects on future thought processes, and she was able to incorporate skills using Differential Attention to adjust behaviors and the Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility model for parents and children for eating. Carolyn’s passion at the time became teaching parents how to get their most discerning eaters to enjoy mealtime, eating a wide variety of foods in amounts that satisfied them.

Challenges of raising a family eventually led her to another and even more divergent career path when she began working at a nursing home in a small town outside of Memphis. So, as you can see, she can certainly boast a career that covers a lifespan. At the nursing home, Carolyn saw firsthand the effects of eating a standard American diet, which oftentimes results in chronic and debilitating disease.

And then Covid. In her extensive search for studies and resources to protect her patients, she came across an integrative medical doctor who inspired her to explore a different approach to healthcare that focused on the terrain rather than the disease or symptoms: feed the body well, removing toxins and optimizing strategic changes in nutritional lifestyle choices to heal the gut and lower inflammation; in other words, enable to body to function well, as God intended which ultimately encourages the body to repair. From his inspiration she found an excellent training course on this more functional approach to nutrition, Full Body Systems with Andrea Nakayama.

She has had the pleasure of improving the health of her family, friends and clients, relieving symptoms which are thought to be a natural part of the aging process. And now she wants to help you. If you struggle with your weight, experience digestive abnormalities, have low energy, chronic disease or abnormal lab results, let her help you in your healing journey. Her years of experience with obesity, disordered feeding, behavioral strategies for adults and children, medication/nutrient interaction assessment, and treating across the entire age span, along with a new functional perspective on healthcare, make her an ideal nutrition therapist to help you live a life of health and improved energy. She invites you to join her so you too can steward your health and develop lifestyle that nourishes you.