One day after a photo of supermodel Gisele Bundchen's riding an ATV with her 1-year-old daughter without helmets blew up online, a representative for the mother of two has come forward to explain.

"Gisele was on a private beach driving very, very slowly," a representative for Bundchen, 33, told ABC News today.

The supermodel mom, and wife of NFL star Tom Brady, was photographed this weekend on vacation in Costa Rica. The photo, first posted on TMZ.com, shows Bundchen with one hand on the handlebars and the other hand on daughter Vivian Lake.

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"My palms started sweating because that just looks terrifyingly unsafe," Adriana Velez of parenting website TheStir.com said, echoing the mostly negative reaction to the photo online.

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The photo is not the first time Bundchen, also mother to 4-year-old son Benjamin, has found herself in the middle of a parenting controversy.

Bundchen and Brady were photographed in March taking Vivian, then 3 months old, on an ATV ride, again in Costa Rica and again without helmets.

A few months later, when Vivian was 7-months-old, Bundchen was criticized after posting photos of her daughter with pierced ears.

More recently, just before Christmas, Bundchen put the spotlight on her parenting again by sharing a photo of her nursing Vivian while simultaneously getting her hair styled, her nails manicured and her face made up.

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"What would I do without this beauty squad after the 15 hours flying and only three hours of sleep #multitasking #gettingready," the Brazilian beauty wrote on Instagram Tuesday, also taking time out of her schedule to translate the caption into Portuguese.

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Any photo of Bundchen with her kids is the subject of particular scrutiny because the supermodel is not known for holding back on her opinions on everything from motherhood to healthy eating.

"Some people here [in the United States] think they don't have to breast-feed, and I think, 'Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?'" she told Harper's Bazaar UK in 2010 after having son Benjamin. "I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breast-feed their babies for six months."

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When it came to staying fit during pregnancy, Bundchen told Vogue while pregnant with Benjamin, she did yoga and was practicing kung fu "up until two weeks" before giving birth.

"I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals," she told the magazine, adding that she gained only 30 pounds.