Bright colours, food cut up into interesting shapes, making pictures with food can all help encourage toddlers to eat.
Remember that every baby SLOWS DOWN IN EATING at about one year of age. The child now grows at a slower pace and does not require the amounts of food that were necessary to fuel the earlier growth.
o Feed your child TINY PORTIONS on a SMALL PLATE. To a small person a spoonful of mashed potatoes can look like a mountain. Better the child ask for more than be overwhelmed.
o Be aware of how little food a young child (under 6 years) needs. A TABLESPOON PER YEAR OF AGE (i.e. two tablespoons for a two-year-old, three for a three year old etc) of starches, fruits or vegetables and protein is an adequate serving size. As for meat or fish, a serving is the size of the CHILD'S PALM.
o Feed FINGER FOODS. Toddlers are becoming independent and want to self-feed, but they also want it to be easy. Lots of things can be served as finger foods. For example you can spread mashed or pureed vegetable (or fruit) on thin bread with crusts removed. This somewhat unorthodox sandwich provides both the starch and vegetable.
o Offer NEW FOODS but make a promise to yourself that you will not get upset if your child refuses to try them. Sometimes, children need to see a new food as many as eight to fifteen times before they are willing to eat it. Have them touch or smell or lick the food to try it. Besides visually having it on their plate, using their other senses to experience the food, should be considered an important road to the process of trying the food. Forcing your child to eat a food he does not want to eat may make him dislike it even more.
o Pay attention to your child's HUNGER PATTERNS. Most childreneven the most finicky eatershave a hungry period. Notice when your kid does the most eating. Be sneaky and offer them a meal at this time.
o Repeat this mantra to yourself: nature does not permit self-starvation by toddlers (although DS did go 3 days once without eating a single thing).
I recommend that you have a snack drawer, box or bag set up, for anytime foods, that he can help himself to. DS has a lunch bag which closes with velcro so it is easy to get in and out of. Underneath there is a zip compartment which i put an ice block in. I put an open plastic box in the bottom and a snack trap and then everything goes in those loose so he can help himself. You do get a few crumbs on the floor but nothing that can't be swept or vacuumed up easily. His has yoghurt, lettuce, carrot sticks, celery, cherry tomatoes, cucumber sticks, dips, spring onions, sliced peppers, sweetcorn, hard boiled egg, cheese, bits of chicken/lamb/beef etc When it is time for a meal tell him he can pick any one thing from the drawer that he wants but only if you can pick something that's not in the drawer. Serve it with toast, cereal, porridge for breakfast or bread, pasta, rice, potatoes for lunch/dinner. Let him help you fill the drawer with snacks he likes that are healthy and pick his box/bag if you choose to go down that route. If you go for a drawer he could help make and decorate a drawer liner for it. Kids love to feel like they have some control.
What also helped with DS was switching to skimmed milk (but you can't do this until they are 2)
The food pyramid is quite handy to look at too and this article and this one.