One of the many female pains I deal with every week is high heels. I like to get dressed up and go out on the weekends so yes it’s sometimes impossible to avoid wearing heels. Every weekend I find myself complaining about how bad my feet hurt from my shoes. The fact that I am still willing to torture myself to look good is beyond me. Each morning I wake up with sore feet from the high heels I wore the night before. I am starting to think that my feet are suffering permeant damage from these tortures high heels. I decided to research this topic to see if it is possible to have damage from wearing high heels too much.
According to the American Osteopathic Association high heels can ruin your feet especially if you wear them often. Some problems that can come along with wearing high heels are ingrown toe nails, damage of leg tendons, nerve damage, osteoarthritis in the knees, and pains in your back. Dr. Nevins states that high heels can also ruin your posture because the heel in the back is forcing your toes to go forward and cram into the top part of the shoe. This means that most women lean back to avoid falling forward in their heels. By leaning back, your over arched posture can ruin your knees, hips, and back. Sciatica can also be caused from this meaning that you could feel very numb or feel a lot of pain in either your legs or your feet.
According to the New York Times one scientist did a study involving women all within the ages of their twenty’s and thirty’s. He split them into two different groups, women that wear high heels regularly, and women that do not. the control group of women who do not wear heels regularly could walk with more ease while the other women even after removing their high heels walked with more force and shorter strides. their toes were also in a flexed position even after they walked barefoot. this showed that they put more strain on their calf muscles than the women who do not wear high heels regularly. Does this mean that they are harming themselves by wearing heels? This is hard to determine, but scientists think that these heels increase the risk of injury ending with possible strains in the joints and muscles.
Nicole Jaworski gives a few suggestions that can help prevent injury from wearing heels. Here are a few of her suggestions: Switch the types of shoes you wear daily. Do not get too comfortable with wearing just one pair of shoes everyday. If you are wearing heels for a long period, remove them a few times to stretch out your feet. Have a back up pair of shoes that you can change into. Wear thick high heels because they are more supportive on your feet. hopefully, these suggests help! I decided to take some of her advice. After all, why torture myself to wear shoes that are just going to cause me harm in the long run?
As soon as I found out Sarah Jessica Parker had given up her famous 1990’s look to rock the “no heels” look, I knew something was wrong. My cousin who is in school for podiatry always lectures me on how bad high heels really were for your feet! Turns out he was right after all, the long term effects of heels are ridiculous! If you wear heels to work every day in your 20’s, by your 40’s some won’t be able to wear heels at all! Thats how damaging they can be! Not to mention the effects on your posture and calf muscle. I think I’ll be like SJP and give up heels for good.
Info from: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57367377-10391704/high-heels-cause-muscle-damage-change-walk-even-after-taken-off/
I’ve always wondered about this because I’ve always viewed heels as possibly good because it gives you a feeling of “working out” your legs; but I guess that’s just the pain! It also reminded me of something I learned about awhile ago that Asian women use to do. The thought behind the original cultural tradition was “small feet were beautiful feet”. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of “foot binding”, but here’s a link on what it is and how messed up people’s feet are from it!
http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/09/16/the-painful-tradition-of-foot-binding-in-china/
Let me start off by giving a little bit of information about the origin of the heel. According to this website: http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/036heels.html, heels were originally seen as a sign of wealth, class, sexuality, appeal and sophistication. It’s been ingrained in our brains that those adjectives are related to the shoe, so it’s understandable that women torture themselves to make themselves more appealing so easily. The truth is that it is very harmful to your feet when done excessively. My grandmother needed an operation on her feet several times because the former prima donna would wear nothing but heels constantly. Mariah Carey can’t stand with her feet flat on the ground anymore because of excess wear of high-heeled shoes. That can’t be healthy. I feel that the pain goes away after age. The more often you wear the shoe, the more accustomed you are to it. Nowadays, when I wear heels, it takes a much longer time for me to feel pain, and the heel has to be rather high for me to feel any effects. When I was younger, I couldn’t even stand in kitten heels for more than an hour without feeling excruciating pain. It all depends on the person if they feel the pain is worth the beauty.
I really liked your blog because I never knew wearing heels could damage other parts of your body besides your feet. Lets face it, the only thing that hurt the next morning are your feet! I don’t wear heels too often (even though I should since I’m only 5’1″) but when I do I hate it. The closest things to heels I wear are wedges because I think they are the most comfortable to walk around in. The Huffington Post complied a lot of funny gifs to explain why heels are the worst shoes to wear. They also wrote this article to scientifically explain why heels are so damaging to feet. There is a diagram to visually show what a heel does to the structure of your foot. It looks really painful which makes me think about the physical pain I feel when I wear heels. If it were up to me, I’d walk around bare foot all day because I have yet to find the perfect-fitting shoe for me.
I never knew that wearing heels could actually do damage to your body! I too do not wear heels out that often because when I wake up the next morning it feels like an elephant stomped on my toes the night before! I have found though, like you mentioned, that when I wear wedge heels that have support in the entire shoe, I feel a lot more comfortable the day that wear them and the day after I wear them too!I was reading on WebMD about the affects of heels on the feet and it said, “Ultra-high heels force the feet into a position that puts stress on the ball of the foot. At this critical joint, the long metatarsal bones meet the pea-shaped sesamoid bones, and the toe bones (phalanges). Too much pressure can inflame these bones or the nerves that surround them. Chronic stress to the foot bones can even lead to hairline fractures.” In other words, all heels are bad for our feet and, even though they may define our legs and make the outfit, the best thing to do is wear comfortable shoes with our going out apparel! Here is the link to the WebMD page that I was reading if you want to take a look at some of the other things they had to say about high heels.
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/ss/slideshow-worst-shoes-for-your-feet
It’s actually really funny you posted about this because my roommate and I were just commenting on all the girls who were wearing heels last night. I see girls out all the time wearing heels and I just don’t understand how or why they do it to themselves. Yeah I understand, heels always look very nice and are sometimes the perfect thing that really makes your outfit “going out” material. However, for me I’ve always favored comfort over looks, and after reading some of your facts above, I sure am happy I like to be comfortable rather than look good! The one study that you mention sounded interesting, but if they only used women in their twenties and thirties, is the test really that random or reliable? It made me want to do some research on my own and I came across an interesting article that said wearing heels could actually tone your muscles! None of the facts are really backed up with any proof, but it’s something to think about! Which article do you believe more?
http://www.3fatchicks.com/toning-muscles-by-wearing-high-heels/