Bites of Wisdom – and Wellness
by Ben Yuri Biersach ’87
Maybe you’ve seen dietitian Kylie Sakaida ’13 in one of her wildly popular food videos on TikTok. Or perhaps you’ve purchased a copy of her bestselling cookbook “So Easy So Good: Delicious Recipes and Expert Tips for Balanced Eating.” Month by month, Sakaida’s star continues to rise as she educates a rapidly growing community about healthy diet and nutrition.
Sakaida’s understanding of the link between food and health was developed early in her life. As a child, she suffered from Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), which caused sensitivities and extreme pickiness. “It made eating food really stressful, and I became malnourished and underweight,” she explains. “I had to skip school a lot when I was in elementary.”
Multiple physicians and practitioners were unable to determine an effective course of treatment, until she was finally connected to a dietitian. “She turned my life around, helped me gain that weight back and let me see food in a non-stressful way,” Sakaida recalls. “That helped me improve my relationship with food before I got to Punahou in seventh grade.”
At Punahou, she explored this healthier perspective. For her sophomore Quality Project, she created a blog that consisted of nine delectable recipes ranging from Chicken Parmesan Wraps to French Toast. In her online statement of purpose at the time, she explained “I hope to answer the question of why cooking is an important lifelong skill to learn.”
Her junior year, Sakaida co-founded The Academy Cooking Club. At the first meeting, pasta and garlic bread were prepared and enthusiastically eaten. “It was a really good time because not only did we all learn how to cook together, but we were able to experience eating as a social thing too, which I think is such a big part of our relationship with food.”
The details of Sakaida’s future career path were beginning to coalesce. “I really liked science,” she says. “I also really liked talking to people thanks to Punahou’s psychosocial program. All of this combined led me to want to study nutrition, because not only did I have this experience with a dietitian, but I also had a love for food, science, and people that I really wanted to nourish.”
After Punahou, Sakaida received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Nutrition Science from Boston University, then worked as a dietitian for several hospitals in the Greater Boston area. During this time, she became alarmed by what she found passing for dietetic advice on social media. “I could see how much food and nutrition misinformation was being distributed online, and it really bothered me as a health professional,” she says. “I remember thinking how it would really be great if there was someone on there who could disseminate the correct information.”
She resolved to be that person, and found the confidence to do so by harkening back to her days as a junior at Punahou. As a Carnival Publicity chair responsible for speaking to the local media and as one of the live hosts at the Video Booth, she had become comfortable on-camera and learned to communicate effectively. In summer 2020, she began posting dietetic advice content to social media daily under the @NutritionByKylie handle. Her online community grew steadily thanks to popular videos that quickly went viral, like her Mason Jar Noodles recipe series.
In 2021, Sakaida moved to Los Angeles to work for Cedars-Sinai as an outpatient dietitian specializing in gastroenterology and weight management. With her online profile ascendant, she was given an opportunity to fulfill a longtime dream – publishing a cookbook. Her editor at Simon & Schuster first proposed the idea to her in 2021, but Sakaida waited two years to start writing. “I didn’t feel ready yet, and I wanted to make a really good product,” she explains. “I wanted to create a comprehensive resource that was worth buying at the bookstore.”
Towards that ambition, the jury has spoken: on its April 2025 release, “So Easy, So Good” reached #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. The impact of the book’s popularity is not lost on Sakaida. “The cookbook community is one that I revere so much. To be able to join it has given me new opportunities to spread the message about nutrition to more people.”
Today, Sakaida is devoted full-time to @NutritionByKylie. While she no longer works one-on-one with patients, through her publishing and social media ventures she has seized on the chance to have a much wider influence. “The beauty of this job is that you don’t even realize certain things are possible until they are already happening,” she says. “I know that whatever I do, I want to be able to continue making nutrition and health more accessible, more digestible … and more fun!”