JonDShoes and your feet (LINK)
August 15th 2008 00:59
Buying new shoes can be a momentous moment. A new pair can dig you out of any bad mood and lift your confidence making you feel on top of the world, and more attractive to the opposite sex. It’s such a miraculous event that popular singer song writer Paolo Ntini wrote a song praising this fleeting high that shoes can give you. In it he says “hey I put my new shoes and suddenly everything is right”. But despite the obvious good that shoes bring to the world, like trapping the smell of stinky feet, keeping our toes warm in the winter and stopping us from stepping in all things sticky and gooey, there is a growing number of clubs and societies dedicated to going shoeless. The Society for Barefoot Living, The Barefoot Runners and The Parents for Barefoot Children all say that the foot is perfectly designed for everyday living and that the shoe is slowly destroying it.
In an article for New York Magazine called “You Walk Wrong” popular American Journalist says “It took 4 million years of evolution to perfect the human foot. But we’re wrecking it with every step we take”. This article was written on the back of recent studies conducted at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa. They showed that humans had healthier feet before the invention of the shoe. The study examined 180 modern humans from three different population groups (Sotho, Zulu, and European), comparing their feet to one another’s, as well as to the feet of 2,000-year-old skeletons. Among the modern subjects, the Zulu population, which often goes barefoot, had the healthiest feet while the Europeans—i.e., the habitual shoe-wearers—had the unhealthiest.
Women are already well aware of how painful it can be to squash to a pair of Jimmy Choo’s with six inch heels. But with these recent findings it looks as if men aren’t escaping the curse of the shoe, one of the Universities lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel said “that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet.” The problems seem to arise because it absolutely impossible to walk with a natural gait (with natural motion) while wearing shoes. This can cause all sorts of pain in the heels, ankles and knees. But it is actually ill fitting shoes and the torture devices that women call fashion that are the main culprits.
Every summer shoe shops and podiatrists are inundated with women complaining of a tingling sensation in their feet, this is due to the rapid change from their high heeled winter boots to flat sandals and flip flops. A problem many people have nicknamed flip-flop-itis. Flip-flop-itis is caused when the tendons in the feet shorten after being stuck up on high heels. When you start to walk back in flat shoes the tendons stretch out again making the feet tingle and sore.
Bunions, corns, calluses and heel pain are not the only things that are caused by wearing shoes, another problem is hygiene. While most people feel that going barefoot is unhygienic the truth of the matter is that smelly feet and athlete’s foot are only enhanced by being constricted in the common shoe. Feet have around 250,000 sweat glands, when we get hot this is one of the first places that the heat leaves our body. The sweat produced by our feet is meant to evaporate hence cooling the feet and in turn the rest of the body. But the problem is that most of the time we are wearing shoes or socks of some sort. These trap the heat and sweat making the feet hotter producing more sweat with no means of escape, never giving our feet the chance to dry off. This gives athlete’s foot and some pretty funky smells a perfect warm and moist breeding ground.
The shoeless are a growing force with many long distance runners and even general citizens now kicking them off preferring the natural gait that can only be gained by bare feet. But if you can’t imagine trekking the streets with no shoes or there is no way that you’re going to throw away your favourite knee highs, just make sure you give your feet a rest and join the 3 out of 5 who take off their shoes every chance they get, they will definitely thank you for it.
Read this and other articles at www.healthandwellbeingetc.net
In an article for New York Magazine called “You Walk Wrong” popular American Journalist says “It took 4 million years of evolution to perfect the human foot. But we’re wrecking it with every step we take”. This article was written on the back of recent studies conducted at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa. They showed that humans had healthier feet before the invention of the shoe. The study examined 180 modern humans from three different population groups (Sotho, Zulu, and European), comparing their feet to one another’s, as well as to the feet of 2,000-year-old skeletons. Among the modern subjects, the Zulu population, which often goes barefoot, had the healthiest feet while the Europeans—i.e., the habitual shoe-wearers—had the unhealthiest.
Women are already well aware of how painful it can be to squash to a pair of Jimmy Choo’s with six inch heels. But with these recent findings it looks as if men aren’t escaping the curse of the shoe, one of the Universities lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel said “that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet.” The problems seem to arise because it absolutely impossible to walk with a natural gait (with natural motion) while wearing shoes. This can cause all sorts of pain in the heels, ankles and knees. But it is actually ill fitting shoes and the torture devices that women call fashion that are the main culprits.
Every summer shoe shops and podiatrists are inundated with women complaining of a tingling sensation in their feet, this is due to the rapid change from their high heeled winter boots to flat sandals and flip flops. A problem many people have nicknamed flip-flop-itis. Flip-flop-itis is caused when the tendons in the feet shorten after being stuck up on high heels. When you start to walk back in flat shoes the tendons stretch out again making the feet tingle and sore.
Bunions, corns, calluses and heel pain are not the only things that are caused by wearing shoes, another problem is hygiene. While most people feel that going barefoot is unhygienic the truth of the matter is that smelly feet and athlete’s foot are only enhanced by being constricted in the common shoe. Feet have around 250,000 sweat glands, when we get hot this is one of the first places that the heat leaves our body. The sweat produced by our feet is meant to evaporate hence cooling the feet and in turn the rest of the body. But the problem is that most of the time we are wearing shoes or socks of some sort. These trap the heat and sweat making the feet hotter producing more sweat with no means of escape, never giving our feet the chance to dry off. This gives athlete’s foot and some pretty funky smells a perfect warm and moist breeding ground.
The shoeless are a growing force with many long distance runners and even general citizens now kicking them off preferring the natural gait that can only be gained by bare feet. But if you can’t imagine trekking the streets with no shoes or there is no way that you’re going to throw away your favourite knee highs, just make sure you give your feet a rest and join the 3 out of 5 who take off their shoes every chance they get, they will definitely thank you for it.
Read this and other articles at www.healthandwellbeingetc.net
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