7. Give realistic portions

Every child has a different appetite.  Some are big eaters and some are not.  A realistic portion is one that your child can finish, not one you think he should finish.  If you insist on your child eating a portion that is completely beyond him, it will only lead to frustration for the both of you.  Even adults are advised by doctors to only eat until you are full, or even 80% full, instead of to the point of being stuffed.  If you child is a small eater, then consider giving him smaller but frequent meals.  In fact, a lot of young children fall into this category of small and frequent eaters because their stomachs are so small.  What you have to be mindful about is to avoid giving junk snacks in between meals.

8. No snacks

By this, I mean no junk snacks right before meals.  Eating lots of biscuits and sweets an hour or half an hour before meal time is bound to spoil the appetite.  Eating healthy snacks between meals (but not right before meals) is fine.

9. No Junk Food

You may be surprised by this : my kids are not big on the Big Yellow M.  I am often surprised by parents introducing fast food to their very young children as if it is some kind of rite of passage ritual.  The fact is that if you bring up your child on junk food, you are cultivating their taste for such food and you should not be surprised if they grow up wanting to eat nothing but junk food.  Remember : you teach your children what to eat.

My mother advised me to make home meals delicious so that my boys have good taste for food and will be naturally turned off by bad food. If they want burgers, make some nice home-made burgers with real and fresh ingredients instead of processed, reconstituted meat.  If they want fries, make healthy baked (and still crispy) fries at home.

Of course, once in a while, we do bring them to fast food restaurants.  But this is more the exception than the norm.  I discovered that they are more interested in the toys that come with the kid's meal rather than the food itself.  So I have made a rule : no kid's meal if they want to eat at fast food restaurants.  I can order food for them in a fast food restaurant if they really want to eat something there.  But I will not allow them to go there just for some lousy toys that they lose interest in after a day.  It is a waste of calories and waste of money.

If you think that you are not a good cook and hence, cannot make delicious home-cooked food to cultivate the taste of your child, take heart!  At least you are feeding him real, fresh food instead of fat laden junk food.  Good food are not necessarily difficult to prepare.  Not being a good cook is not a reason for introducing junk food.  Your child will pick that up sooner or later without you making a point to introduce it.