15 month old obsessed with food

[minks1234]

I need some advice - if anyone can help i would be very grateful.
My 15 month old son loves food but when a meal finishes he has a complete meltdown (screaming, real tears, grabbing others food). In the house it's tiring but manageable - I just move the empty bowl away, remove him and distract him till it blows over. However, out in public, it can be very embarassing - he screams and points at others food and I have to pay and leave immediately on him finishing to get him away from the food. The desperation starts as soon as he is in his high chair - he grabbed a slice of lemon from my plate and ate that the other day as soon as he was at the table.
He isn't hungry - the portion size seems irrelevant to the meltdown when it finishes and he never tells me he is full - will eat it if it's in front of him.
I can find lots of info on fussy eaters but nothing on this type of desperate eating - it's getting so bad that he had a meltdown in a supermarket because he saw some grapes he wanted on the shelf and nearly knocked himself out of the trolley trying to teach them.
Please can anyone help?

Does he feed himself, and have you always controlled how much he eats? Is he following a weight centile as expected?

My DS would eat scarily large portions when he was 12 to 18 months, and I let him have as much as he wanted. He would eventually stop eating! Now he's 2.3 and eats normal amounts.

He feeds himself with finger food and makes an attempt with spoons (but badly). His weight percentile is just below 75% but this is hard to track as he was born premature so was less that 1% at birth. When his weight and growth caught up, he sat at around 50% up to around 10 months then has increased again in the last 3 months.
Our hv isn't concerned by his weight ( although he is very "bouncy"), however the utter breakdown after each meal just seems very extreme - I've never seen a baby react so strongly!

I would just wonder what would happen if you let him eat as much as he wants for a day or two, as maybe he is still hungry, even though he's eaten what already seems like a decent portion.

Thank you, I will try that and see if it calms him down.

Are you sure he's not hungry?

Ds1 was obsessed with food from weaning, and sometimes would eat almost an adult pportion at this age!

Once he got to 2 and a half ish, he lost interest and is now a skinny 8 yo.

I agree with letting your DS eat and seeing what happens .

I also think you should try offering bigger portions or something else after his meals. It could be that he is getting so distressed because he is learning that he will feel hungry once it’s all gone. Does he snack? My 16mo can put away a huge amount of food when she is hungry.

At 15 months I would stop spoon feeding him tbh. Just give food, own cutlery and let him eat as much or little as he wants.

Ignore as eat your own meal