Home > Foot CareThe Pitfalls of High Heels
There are two main reasons: First, high-heeled shoes throw the entire weight of the wearer forward, making it far more difficult to sustain upright balance. They force the women wearing them to use a lot of extra muscular effort to keep themselves from falling forward. Much of this extra effort is concentrated in the lower back, producing an exaggerated arch which can easily lead to back pain.
In retrospect Hand Care and Foot Care teacher try his best to coax wearers of high-heeled shoes to lessen their dependence on them and, if at all possible, to gradually give them up entirely. Fortunately our notions of acceptable work wear have changed and it’s a lot easier to do this today than twenty-five years ago.
Why are Hand Foot Care teachers so concerned about this issue?
There are two main reasons: First, high-heeled shoes throw the entire weight of the wearer forward, making it far more difficult to sustain upright balance. They force the women wearing them to use a lot of extra muscular effort to keep themselves from falling forward. Much of this extra effort is concentrated in the lower back, producing an exaggerated arch which can easily lead to back pain.
But the distorting effects go far beyond the lower back. Human bodies function as a whole and so it’s not possible to create undue tension in one region without also producing a series of related restrictions extending from the head down to the feet.
A second important reason for our concern about wearing high heels is that they make it very difficult for the feet to carry out their important sensing and balancing roles. The underlying structure of the human foot is very similar to that of the hand - lots of bones and joints designed to allow us to quickly and easily sense and adapt to whatever it contacts.
When we squeeze our feet into tight fitting shoes and then remove almost all contact with the surface on which we’re standing or walking, we allow these sensing and adapting functions to atrophy. It’s no wonder that many women look like they’re about to tumble down when they walk about in these shoes. They are!
Does all this mean that one should never, ever wear high-heeled shoes? No, it certainly won’t harm you to wear them once in a while, particularly if you take advantage of these occasions to sense their effect on your posture and movement patterns.
If you are a frequent wearer of these shoes, and want to lessen your use of them, it’s probably best not to do so at once. You’d better gradually reducing the heel height and the amount of time you wear them in order to give your body time to adjust.
Shoe styles come and go. Platform shoes, high heeled boots for men, “negative heel” shoes - there’s really no end to the silly designs that have appeared over the years. The best general shoe advice: ‘nature knows best’---we can feel, we can move, we can balance, we are not compelled to make unnecessary movement. The good shoe is flexible, stays on the foot and is not thicker or heavier than circumstances demand.”
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