Unlucky souls pay a price for dodgy shoes
ARE high heels a health hazard?
They most certainly are if an article I read in the celebrity section of a Sunday newspaper recently is anything to go by.
In it a Cape Town orthopaedic surgeon says women often put fashion ahead of health, adding women would rather carry on with bunions or knee problems than give their shoes away.
He estimates that 30% of his foot surgery on female patients is linked to the wrong shoes – and warns that high heels keep the knee in a flexed position and women can get knee-cap pain, tendonitis and ligament problems.
Reading on, I was fascinated by the remarks of a “soapie” star who said she was living on painkillers because many years of wearing high heels had given her a weak ankle. “Heels,” she maintained, “maketh the outfit and I would never be caught wearing flats at a function because they just don’t do anything for my outfit”.
Talk about suffering for the cause! All this triggered memory of an article I read many years ago on the same subject. In it experts on the subject stated that inordinately high heels made women martyrs to backache.
Another ill-effect they said, was that the foot gets no exercise at all; the whole foot is placed on the ground all at once whereas the correct way of walking is first the heel then the ball of the foot – and finally the toes.
Of all the parts of the body, continued the article, the feet are the ones requiring the most meticulous care. Once you start having problems with bunions, crooked toes or dropped arches, you’re landed with them for good and you’ll suffer from foot trouble to the end of your days.
Feet that have had to be operated on, rarely heal so completely as to give no further trouble. The best way to avoid foot problems, is always to choose the correct type of footwear – comfortable and well-fitting shoes. One’s feet never become fully developed until about the age of 20. Ninety percent of all infants are born with potentially healthy feet, yet more than 50% of teenagers already show signs of foot trouble.
The question of fitting children’s shoes is therefore one of primary importance.
In certain states of America, annual examination of all pupils feet is compulsory by law. Listlessness, nervousness and bad posture may frequently be traced back to ill-fitting shoes.
Shoes recommended for children below high school age should be laced-up, low-heeled; the soles should be flexible and shaped to match the normal outline of the foot. Avoid soles which are not perfectly level on the ground. Well, that was the expert opinion back in 1971 and it still sounds like common sense to me today!