Mine have a mini-fridge (next to our main fridge) which I put healthy snacks (chopped fruit, veg, cheese, the odd cracker) and drinks in for them to help themselves to. The don't use it very near to a meal-time, and they have been surprisingly sensible about only taking as much as they feel they want rather than scoffing it all in the first five minutes, and using plates and sitting at the table etc. They are very solemn and responsible about it
I have been flamegrilled a couple of times on here by people who think it's "disgusting" to let children have their own fridge and regulate their own eating to a degree (I decide when and what they eat at mealtimes, although I don't make them eat when they're not hungry or eat things they don't like). I think though that those people generally assume that I am filling it with Coke and Mars bars.
I think in a way my attitude is a reaction against my parents' approach to feeding children, which was a bit like feeding animals. You ate what you were given (generally a large portion of homogenous stodge), when you were told, ALL of it, or else. No talking at the table my stepfather used to say "Lets have a bit less talk and a bit more eat!") And no drinks with the meal, not even water, because of course ALL children are on a perverse mission to "fill up on water" in order to "get out of" eating any food . We were stood over for hours until we forced down whatever it was - I remember my sister crying and gagging over tinned spaghetti hoops for several hours, but she did eat it eventually.
It's a sticky one though, people understandably get very agitated around food and feeding. It's the first and primary thing we do for our children, and I do think that the dysfunctional and over-anxious nature of many of our attitudes to it has to do with crap breastfeeding support, lousy attitudes towards mothers and babies and the fact that so many mothers end up feeling that they have "failed" in this primary duty before the baby can hold its own head up