Issue No. 5 North Dakota State University NDSU Extension Service Children and Eating Parents are responsible for what is presented to eat and the manner in which it is presented.
Children are responsible for how much and even whether they eat.
If your preschool child continued to double his body weight as rapidly as he did in infancy, he would weigh hundreds of pounds by kindergarten. It makes sense then that, even though he is growing, he would eat less and grow more slowly after infancy. A preschooler's habit of not eating as voraciously as in younger days often causes alarm in parents. In their worry, parents tend to give the situation a lot of attention which in turn causes the child to refuse food more to get the attention. Or the child may simply wish to assert his independent thinking skills.