Navigating your child's appetite

This boy can honestly out eat most adults.
There are a few messages in this picture...

Sometimes busy active kids (like my super sporty, energetic little man) need as much or more to eat than adults.
It is easy to assume that because our bodies are bigger, that we need to eat more than kids who are smaller, but this isn't always true.
Super active kids can have higher energy requirements than adults sometimes, especially as so many adults are sedentary most of the time!
With a smaller stomach capacity, kids won't be able to eat as much on each occasion (Josh didn't finish this bowl entirely), but 1-2 opportunities to have something to eat between main meals can work well (it is all very individualised of course).
Kids are born with the ability to naturally regulate the amount that they eat (99.9% of the time, there is always an expectation). This natural regulation system can be easily over ridden though.
If kids are constantly picking and nibbling all day, they are unlikely to want to eat meals at meal times, and this then leads to meal time battles.
Also, some kids have so much to eat during the day (especially those at pre-school when they get a full-cooked lunch!), that when dinner time arrives, they simply don't need much more food. When both Zac and Josh were at pre-school, they often would only have 1-2 mouthfuls of dinner. They just didn't need more food, and that was fine with me. I didn't force it.
Our role as parents and care givers as the amazing Ellyn Satter states, is for us to take leadership with the 'what, when and where of feeding' and the child to determine 'how much'.