When it comes to finding a childcare facility for your child, most of us have many different factors we go by.
Ethos, location and price play a large role, no doubt. For me, being Scandinavian and obsessed with children spending most of the day outside, I wanted somewhere that had large outdoor areas, like creches do at home. And staff that were kind and warm and that made my children feel safe and cared for. That’s it, that was what topped my list.
Other than that, I don’t really ask much,
But to others, I came to realize, different things matter greatly. For Hilary Freeman, a London-based mum and author, it was the the nursery assistant’s weight that made her made up her mind about not enrolling her young daughter at a certain pre-school.
Yup, that’s right. According to Freeman herslf, her two-year-old was removed from her nusery because the assistant was obese. Uh, yep, she just went there. Instead, she explained in MailOnline she sent her daughter to another nursery “where the staff are all a healthy weight.”
And although Freeman admitted thinking the assistant was kind and great with children, the London mum felt a growing sense of unease when she watched her play with her daughter.
“(The assistant) was only in her 20s, but she was already obese—morbidly so,” Freeman explains. “She moved slowly and breathlessly, her face flushed. Would she, I wondered, have the lightning reflexes needed to save an adventurous toddler from imminent danger? What sort of unhealthy habits would she teach my daughter, who would be eating her lunch and tea there each day?”
Her main worry, Freeman explains, was hat having a constant “extremely overweight” presence would be sending her daughter and the other children the wrong message: “That being very fat is normal and—when children adopt role models so readily—even desirable.”
And although Freelan knows she would be accused of discrimination and fat-shaming, shesays she is sick of having to be so “politically correct” that she can’t say anything negative about obesity.
“Fat positivity—also known as fat acceptance—has gone too far. Originally a response to discrimination against those who aren’t slim enough to fit into society’s beauty ideal, it’s now an excuse for the severely obese to celebrate their bodies, the consequences be damned,” she argued.
“If that nursery assistant had been chain-smoking, everyone would have condemned her. But as a public health concern, the only real difference between smoking and obesity is that you can’t passively get fat,” the mum wrote, also pointing out that research shows obesity as the cause of many major diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
What do YOU make of this, mamas? Would something like this be of concern to you when selecting a creche or childcare facility?
