A mom is under fire for writing an article saying she wasn't interested in having a "fat person" teach her daughter — and one week and thousands of comments later, she's still refusing to back down.
Last week, journalist Hilary Freeman penned an op-ed for the Daily Mail in which she said she didn't want a fat person caring for her two-year-old daughter. A staffer at a nursery Freeman was considering for her daughter was, Freeman says, "obese," which apparently concerned the mom. "Would she, I wondered, have the lightning reflexes needed to save an adventurous toddler from imminent danger?" Freeman wrote. "And what sort of unhealthy habits would she teach my daughter, who would be eating her lunch and tea there each day?"
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It was her belief, Freeman continued, that "fat positivity" had "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 wrote at the time. "Activists say that ‘fat is beautiful’ and being obese isn’t a problem. Anyone who points out it’s not a good thing to be so overweight is condemned. Telling a woman she should think about losing weight for her health is, apparently, now ‘anti-feminist.'" She also employed an often-used argument that fat people are unhealthy, and that was this is the reason we shouldn't let them feel comfortable in their own skin.
Freeman apparently didn't expect the backlash to her views to be as intense as it has been. This week, she wrote a second piece discussing the vitriolic response she has received. "I have variously been called a ‘fat shamer’, told I am a terrible mother, accused of being shallow, judgmental, nasty and dangerous. And those are the least offensive insults," she wrote.
Freeman, however, is standing by her statements, claiming she has problems with obesity, not obese people. "Fat people can be and often are very attractive. I have large friends who I think are beautiful," she said. "But morbid obesity leads to things that are not attractive — such as amputations and cancerous tumors, blocked arteries and enlarged hearts. Fact." She also tried to backtrack her comments about the weight of a teacher making a difference in the day care she chose for her daughter, now saying it was only one of many factors.
Social media users had numerous responses to her claims, with many pointing out that being "thin" didn't necessarily make someone "fit" or "healthy." Others took issues with Freeman's portrayal of herself as a victim in her second essay. Some of the insults directed at Freeman are unacceptable. But given that she is reinforcing weight stigma, wrongly implying you can evaluate health based on appearance, and suggesting that fat people should be ashamed of their bodies, it's not surprising that she's getting opposition.
https://twitter.com/isle_of_ewe/status/908242965558067201
https://twitter.com/alpbrserl/status/908218157369888768
https://twitter.com/FranS199/status/907713925130616834
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