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Working Mothers Don’t Make Children Obese
Why blaming working mums is mostly misogynistic nonsense
The news cycle is full of wonderful irony. One week it’s International Women’s Day, and we’re all talking about how important it is to reduce gender inequality across the world. The next, news sources from across the world are blaming childhood obesity on — of all things — working mothers.
It sometimes feels like last week never happened.
Headlines everywhere have been screaming that working mothers are “to blame” for obesity, that the childhood obesity crisis is due to working moms, or that scientists are blaming working mums for “UK’s obesity epidemic”.
We love blaming working mothers for everything under the sun. Maybe it’s because society needs a scapegoat when things appear to go wrong, maybe it’s because we all yearn for the days gone by, or maybe it’s because misogynistic nonsense makes better news than well-reported science.
Who knows?
Fortunately for mothers everywhere, there’s nothing to worry about. You aren’t making your kids sick just by going to work.
