How to improve your child’s appetite? 

There is nothing more devastating for a parent to offer their precious child the best diet possible and to see it get wasted. Running after kids with bites in your hands is a common sight and getting them to eat salad instead of a kit-kat is just not going to happen.

There is no good in saying, ‘if I would have trained from the start, he might not have had such eating habits’. Well, the start is gone lady! Plan it for the next kid. But let’s get done with the spoiled cases first.

PS: Tip for the next one, feeding them only what they like, is not going to prove your eternal love for them. Instead it will obstruct their taste development for different foods and the result? same as the older one.

While making an effort to improve your child’s appetite, make sure you eliminate other causes, such as,

• Children eating slowly, may not always be a sign of laziness, sometimes children who spend less time with their parents, tend to gain their attention by taking more time to eat, so they can have their parents attention and concern.
  You also need to eliminate any distractions that is appealing more to the kid than the food. That can be TV, games or any other family activity.

• Every kid with a low appetite does not have a medical reason. First, consider the fact that every individual has his/her own dietary needs. If your child is active, that means he is eating enough. Also, when he is being ‘ I don wanna eat mum, I am full’ assess carefully that is it something else around that he wants to do more than being fed right now? If so, keep that ‘something’ out of reach till he promises to eat properly when its time.

Here are a few things, you can try to tame the little lion into a cute kitty who listens to you when you try to improve their diet.

1. Have a new house rule. Get it pasted everywhere, in their room, dining, in the kitchen and implement it from now. There are fix timings to eat. Breakfast, (school lunch), lunch, evening snack and dinner. They have to eat on the time asked, or they are not going to get the special candy bar later.
2. Tempt them by coming up with a background story of what they are eating and how their favorite Disney princess and Lion King all love it!
3. Show them pictures of under nourished kids. And let them know how privileged they are to have a choice.
4. Focus on how you serve them. They may eat something simply for the reason that they liked how funny it looked.
5. Do not scold your child during eating a meal.
6. Do not stress upon table manners at a very early age, they’ll learn with time when they see you doing it.
7. Do not force a child to stuff himself. He will eat when he is hungry.
8. Limit his candies, carbonated drinks and chocolates, specially before a meal. He will be hungry, only when he has not taken anything else for the past 2 hours.
9. Set a good example. If they don’t see you eating everything. They will be picky too.
10. Last, but not the least, give them less but give them the best. They might love you for a McDonald’s burger today, but they will thank you for a proper protein diet tomorrow instead of a chunk of chicken.