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High
Anxiety! - now for the bad news!
| If you're a high-heel kind of a girl,
then you're already slipping on those spiky heels or platform pumps because you like the way they make your calves and clothes look, plus, hey,
you are the belle of the ball in em eh?. Women know high heels aren't good for their feet, and they don't deny that they're uncomfortable. |
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In fact, a Gallup Poll found that 37 percent of women surveyed said they would continue to wear high heels, even though they did not think them comfortable. Mark it up to the price of beauty.
Feet aren't made for heels
Despite what you're willing to tolerate as a lover of heels, you may be underestimating the damage that high heels can cause, beyond just having sore feet at the end of the day.
Not surprisingly, doctors of podiatric medicine (foot doctors) see no value in high heels, which they generally define as pumps with heels of more than two inches.
You know those lovely curves you get with high heels? It's not a normal anatomical
position!
Podiatrists say high heels are "biomechanically and orthopedically unsound," citing medical, postural, and safety faults of such heels, according to the American Podiatric Medical Association. Among the litany of problems to which stilettos and their sister heels contribute, are knee and back problems, disabling injuries in falls, and shortened calf muscles, not to mention an awkward, unnatural gait.
Heels force the thigh muscles to work harder, putting extra strain on the knee joint and tendon that runs from the knee cap to the thigh bone. Compared with walking barefoot, high heels increase the pressure on the inside of the knee by 26 percent. Over time, this increased pressure on the knee can lead to
osteoarthritis.
While most high-heel fans aren't so willing to totally abandon their high pumps, a recent survey indicates that many might be willing to make some adjustments - to a point.
The survey said?
In an online survey released in mid-September 2001 by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, 80 percent of the women respondents said their feet hurt, and nearly 60 percent of them
confessed to wearing uncomfortable shoes for at least an hour a day. The good news, though, is that 85 percent of the women with aching feet said that they had changed the kind of shoes they wear or wear them less often.
The survey, which involved 1,724 women, also revealed that:
'Work' or 'style' are the reasons why women wear uncomfortable shoes.
Calluses and heel pain were the top shoe-related foot ailments.
Women also complain about such conditions as bunions, swelling of the joint at the base of the big toe; hammertoes, a permanent bend in the middle joint of a toe; neuromas, nerve problems that cause shooting pain into the toes; ingrown toenails; and even stress fractures.
Elderly women who swear they've worn high heel shoes all their lives and say they can't wear a flat shoe. They get a physiologically shorter Achilles tendon. Over a period of
time.
Typically, feet swell throughout the day, and poorly fitting shoes won't accommodate that swelling. Sometimes the pain is achy,
almost a bone bruising, or a sharp pain between the bones in the ball of the foot. |
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Toes can start to curl up from being in a narrow or pointed toe
box. Probably the patient with the ugliest feet is a dancer because she's wearing toe shoes or high heels for dancing."
"Bony problems" are such a big part of foot problems that podiatrists even have a high-heel nickname for one condition - a pump bump.
It's a big bump on the back of your heel, it's like a callus of bone on the back of the heel from the shoe rubbing the bone."
Nail problems also are common from the constant pressure of toes being pressed against the end of the shoe. That can cause the nail to thicken and promote the growth of foul-smelling fungus. Plus, if a person has curved toenails, it can induce or exacerbate painful in-grown nails.
Changing your heel habits
If you just can't imagine life without heels,
choos styles with squared-off toes and shorter, chunkier heels instead of stilettos.
However, it should be noted that a 1998 Harvard University study published in the medical journal, The Lancet, found that wide-heeled shoes cause problems too.
Researchers found that while women who wore stick-thin heels were more likely to develop problems in their feet, including tendinitis and bone deformities, women who pulled on thick heels were as prone to develop serious and potentially debilitating knee problems.
"They are better for your feet than stiletto heels, but just as bad for your knees," Casey Kerrigan, lead researcher of the Harvard study, says about wider-heeled shoes.
If a wide-heeled shoe isn't you anyway, then follow some
tips for female shoe shoppers:
- Look for thicker soles that absorb shock better and put less pressure on the foot, and an upper material, such as leather or microfiber, that will give a little to allow the foot to swell without pinching.
Those will still look nice and not hurt so badly.
- If you simply must wear high heels, then limit the time you wear them. Wearing flatter shoes or tennis shoes for walking long distances, such as to and from the office, and then changing into your heels once you get to work.
- Give your feet a nice massage or soak them in lukewarm water at the end of the day. "If your foot has been put in that funny position all day, it feels like it's stuck that
way. Treat yourself!
- If you want to want to be good to your feet, then consider following the recommendation on "perhaps the best shoe you can buy from an orthopedic point of view" - a walking shoe with
laces (not a slip-on), a Vibram-type composition sole, and a relatively wider heel, no more than a half or three-quarters of an inch in height.
- Dull, yes, but safe.
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