At college, you’re completely responsible for your own food decisions. If you want to eat pizza and French fries for every meal, you can. But by now, most people realize that this isn’t a great idea. When we’re little, our parents make sure we get all of the healthy food we need. And you know what? It’s hard! Kids are picky eaters, and sometimes it takes a lot to get them to eat all their veggies. But maybe we can learn something from the way we used to eat.

In case you can’t remember how you ate when you were five, here are a few strategies that you might find useful:

It’s all about presentation.
Have you ever tried to serve a kid chicken and peas when the two are touching just ever so slightly? It doesn’t work – even if they like both items, nothing on the plate can touch anything else. Kids also love when their food is arranged artfully in some way.

Taking a few minutes to work on the presentation of your food can help you feel fuller and more satisfied. Why? Well, it will help you to focus on each individual thing you’re eating, but it will also prevent you from eating directly out of containers. Always put your food on a plate, and take that extra second to make it look nice. This will help you really enjoy your food and feel more satisfied after a meal. Recent studies have also shown that eating one food at a time rather than switching between bites of several kinds makes you less likely to overindulge.

Use kiddie-sized portions.
Restaurant portions are huge, and they often contain much more food than we actually need. Since we’re so used to seeing these huge meals, we often let it affect the way we eat when we’re at home as well. Try to think of your portions as “kiddie sized.” When you go out to eat, order off the kids menu if there is one. If there’s not, or if they won’t let you, try ordering a half portion of whatever you’re getting. Not only will this save you money, but it will also stop you from eating beyond the point of being full. When you’re at home or school, try using smaller dishes to make smaller portions seem bigger.

Eat very, very slowly.
How often do you see a kid rush through a meal? More likely, he or she will get distracted by something else and start talking about it, completely forgetting about the food on the table. Allow yourself to get caught up in conversation with your friends during meals so that you slow down. If you eat slowly, you’ll be able to realize when you’re full and stop eating.

Get tricked into eating veggies.
One lesson you shouldn’t take from kids is their resistance to vegetables. However, there is still a lesson here. Parents (and babysitters) often have to trick kids into eating vegetables so that they get all the nutrients they need. One trick is to puree vegetables and mix them into tomato sauce for pasta or lasagna. Or take a vegetable like zucchini that doesn’t have too much flavor and bake it into breads or muffins. Even if you’ve gotten over your fear of broccoli by now, these ideas can still be a great way to get more vegetables into your diet.

No desserts until after you finish the healthy stuff.
When you’re in the dining hall, don’t pick up a dessert with the rest of your food. Get your meal, sit down and eat, and then make a decision: Do I still really want that piece of cake? If you want, you can make dessert a reward for eating all your vegetables. For example, serve yourself a healthy portion of broccoli or a spinach salad at each meal, and don’t eat dessert until you’ve finished every last bite.