Has Tamara let her toddler stay too long in the sun?
AT first glance, this is how you don’t want your toddler to end up after a day on the beach.
Her skin apparently a painful red as she wallows in the shallows on a blisteringly hot day in the Bahamas, Sophia Ecclestone seems to be in dire need of some strong sun lotion – and a sunhat.
Her mother Tamara, daughter of billionaire Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, posted the photo online, saying later that the two-year-old ‘tans easily’.
But some of Miss Ecclestone’s online followers accused the 31year-old of putting her daughter at risk of skin cancer and blisters.
With temperatures in the Bahamas this week approaching 86F (30C), one commented on the picture: ‘She’s sunburnt.’ Another added: ‘Get some factor 50 on her.’
Sue Atkins, author of Parenting
‘Wearing factor 70’
Made Easy: How To Raise Happy Children, said: ‘Children should always be covered up, certainly wearing a hat, and be covered in at least factor 50 sun cream.
‘You need to cover up those little shoulders and those delicate necks, where they can get very burnt. I thought everybody knew that.’
Miss Ecclestone was quick to answer her critics, saying that Sophia had been wearing factor 70 and looked so dark only because of a special filter used on the picture.
Posting another picture showing Sophia in the sea and looking much paler, she wrote: ‘For all you busybodies commenting on Sophia’s tan, she is not burnt in the slightest – has been wearing factor 70 and kept out of the midday sun.
‘She is a lucky girl that tans quickly, nonetheless I am fully aware of the dangers of the sun and she has never burnt.’ She added that her husband Jay Rutland was ‘partial to a filter’ on photos.