Introducing KAIGO: The Nutrition Brand Designed For Everyday Life
Founder & CEO, Mr. Uzochukwu Chima on creating a wellness brand focused on personalized nutrition.
Words, Delanique Millwood
Photography, Marcus V Richardson
It was in good faith that the presence of the man behind KAIGO was inescapably acknowledged. Through establishing secure-feeling eye contact connections and maintaining a welcoming aura that is both lovable and subtly zestful, he is able to transform the way people feel in a room. It is in the same way KAIGO is set on putting members first, that its founder, Uzochukwu Chima is choosing to operate as his own man.
“The word kaigo in Japanese means care, and there hasn’t been a lot of that in the healthcare industry,” shared Mr. Uzochukwu Chima as we talked about his newly relaunched brand.
Nowadays, the concept of wellness is taking the shape of a more modern approach to self-care and well-being. In this case, it sometimes occurs that the more serious ailments, especially chronic conditions, are overlooked. But then brands like KAIGO are established by people who really care to push that envelop forward.
KAIGO, an end-to-end nutrition service powered by a growing number of local doctors, dietitians and chefs to help members heal through personalized nutrition, is tackling the art of bridging the gap between food delivery and medical experts by addressing medical conditions and meeting them with guided nutrition solutions. “Over 60% of Americans have at least one chronic illness. These include heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes, which are mostly preventable illnesses and directly linked to the food we eat. About 2 out of 3 of all deaths are linked to these conditions,” says Chima, referring to a study written by Herald Schmidt, MA, PhD: Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
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KAIGO provides its community members with guided nutrition so they can live the healthiest and best version of themselves.
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To further support the brand’s mission, notable advisors and investors including David Stern — Commissioner Emeritus of the National Basketball Association and Mike Lee -- Founder of MyFitnessPal, recommend Kaigo’s guided nutrition solution to their network.
Truth is, when KAIGO first set out to build a network of medical experts five years ago, they didn’t first think about the connection between food and well-being. Nonetheless, Chima successfully assembled a community of over 1,500 physicians and specialists and helped to coordinate care for over 80,000 patients by connecting them to the right doctors and specialists.
During this process, they also learned that the majority of the illnesses the community members had where linked to poor nutrition, so they went back to the drawing board to find a solution.
“It is easy to take medication, but we knew that it was just a band-aid. We really want to help people long term, so we figured out a way to heal from within and prevent chronic illnesses. We noticed that committing to a nutrition plan is where a lot of people fail. People weren’t eating properly, and we wanted to solve that.”
But wellness doesn’t start or end with food. It is a continuous effort to become the best version of yourself, and pushing yourself everyday to meet that version.
“Wellness became clearer to me when I took a step back and restructured my perspective. Rather than asking myself the things to do to lose weight, I started to restructure that into ‘what does the best version of myself look like? and if I meet him, how would I feel?’ and I just went all in from there. I was morphing into the best version of myself, and to me, that is what wellness is all about,” explained Chima when elaborating on what wellness means to him. He continued, “Men are 80% more likely to have a chronic illness than women. The main reason for this is that men are less likely to seek advice and get tested. So they usually find out about serious conditions later than women and often times it's irreversible.”
To reduce intimidation among men, the community fostered at KAIGO is straight-forward and welcoming. At every step of they way, the concierge style service provides results without compromise through cultivating community, sourcing locally, and honing in on personalized experience.
In the same way Airbnb changed the way people travel around the globe, KAIGO is implementing a similar approach with making sure that the entire process is transparent and user-friendly, all while impacting the way people feel about themselves.
In partnership with KAIGO. The standpoints articulated above are personal opinions, and are not representative of the stance or ranking of KAIGO.