According to Dr. Oliver Zong, a New York City Podiatrist , “The average person takes 8,000 to10,000 steps a day. Multiply that by 365 days a year, over a period of ten or more years and imagine the pounding and wear and tear that your feet undergo.” It is no wonder that wearing high heel and ill fitting shoes can cause severe and permanent foot problems.
Here are 10 reasons to stop wearing high heel shoes:
1. Wearing high heels for a long period of time, and for many years, not only changes the shape of one’s foot, but could cause permanent deformity which may require cosmetic surgery to correct. If you are vain enough to wear high heels for more than special occasions and for moderate periods of time, then perhaps your vanity should consider the permanent distorted shape your feet and toes could take on as you get older. Even if you are willing to endure the pain of painful walking and standing, you will probably not be too happy about the contorted shapes of your toes and feet after prolonged wearing and walking in high heel shoes.
2. Not only do high heels smoosh and squeeze and squash your toes, they can create in-grown toenails, blisters and foot infections. As a result you are not only paying for expensive shoes, but you will end up paying for extra medical bills and over the counter temporary foot relief products.
3.High heel shoes distort your natural posture and body balance. They throw your weight forward which creates a situation for your body to needing to make more effort to sustain balance without falling. The extra effort is concentrated on the lower back which can also create back pain.
4. High heel shoes often leave pock marks, and indentations on floors. So not only is the person wearing the shoes damaging their body, they are damaging the floors they walk on.
5. Shoes are meant to protect your feet. If you need to run or walk fast, you are likely to either stumble and fall and break a bone or sprain your ankle if you are wearing high heel shoes. If you need to remove your shoes to protect yourself against an intruder, you will probably be regretting that you even wore high heel shoes.
6. It is difficult to enjoy an evening of lots of dancing or walking if the entire time you are thinking about how much your feet hurt or ache and how badly you want to sit down and get off your feet.
7. If you think you look more attractive in high heels, or thinner or taller, then think about how unattractive you look when you are limping in pain from the high heel shoes squeezing off the circulation in your feet. At the very least you will be walking with an awkward and unnatural gait.
8. Ever hear of pump bump? That’s a nick-name that podiatrists use for people who wear high-heels that have developed a hard callous that looks like a bumped out bone extending from the heel bone of your foot. It happens because the back of the high heel shoes continually rubs the bone on the back of your foot.
9. According to a survey by American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, 80 percent of women who responded said their feet hurt and 60% of those women admitted they wore uncomfortable shoes for at least an hour a day.
10. You may have heard or seen Miss America take a tumble in front of millions of people in her high heel shoes during the evening gown competition. Talk about an embarrassing moment. If a person who literally trains herself to walk gracefully in high heel shoes and in one of the most important moments in her career falls down, because of her shoes, that should tell you something. High heel shoes just “ain’t natural”.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/262214/miss_america_rachel_smith_takes_a_tumble.html
