What are the biological and nutritional benefits of having numerous smaller meals a day?
One rationale is that smaller meals will cause less insulin secretion compared to a larger meal. With less circulating insulin over the time, insulin will be under the threshold required to activate the adipogenic program in the white adipose tissue. So, you will burn ingested carbohydrates instead of converting them in fat despite the same caloric intake. See for instance Munster and Saris, Plos One 2012.