Children's portion sizes
Children's portions are smaller than adult portions and grow as they do – your child's own hand is a better guide than the kitchen scales.
Ausführlich erklärt
A child's portion is whatever size suits your child's age, size and hunger – and every child always has the best measuring tool to hand: their own hand. In its food pyramid, the German Federal Centre for Nutrition (BZfE) uses exactly this hand measure: a portion of fruit or vegetables in pieces is as much as fits into the child's hand; finely chopped food, salad or berries can be two handfuls. A slice of bread is as big as the whole hand, meat or fish about as big and thick as the palm, and pasta, rice or potatoes are two child-sized handfuls. Because the hand grows, the portion automatically grows with it.
Children's energy requirements are much lower than adults': according to the reference values of the German Nutrition Society (DGE), four- to six-year-olds who aren't very active need around 1,300 to 1,400 kcal a day, and seven- to nine-year-olds around 1,500 to 1,700 kcal. Adults with similarly low activity levels need about 1,800 to 2,400 kcal. So if you fill a five-year-old's plate as full as your own, you're giving them considerably more than they need – almost twice as much, depending on the parent.
The good news: healthy children regulate how much they eat via hunger and fullness with astonishing accuracy – over several days, and as long as you let them. So the rule is: serve small portions, and second helpings are explicitly allowed. That way, your child learns to listen to their tummy rather than to the size of the plate. Smaller plates, serving bowls so they can help themselves and vegetables as a starter make this easy.
As for the balance on the plate: the optimiX child nutrition concept developed by the Research Department of Child Nutrition (FKE) recommends plenty of drinks (ideally water) and plant foods such as vegetables, fruit, grains and potatoes, moderate amounts of animal foods such as milk, meat, fish and eggs, and only small amounts of foods high in fat and sugar. A simple rule of thumb for the plate: half vegetables and fruit, a quarter starchy sides, a quarter protein-rich foods.
What you don't need: scales or calorie targets for children. They're growing, and their needs vary from day to day – on busy, active days they eat more, on quiet days less. Both are perfectly fine.