Everyday I wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, and am faced with the same question: what shoes should I wear today? Usually my answer is dependent on the weather outside and the season of the year, but today as I was picking up my go-to converse sneakers, I snuck a glance at my heels. Of course, I would never wear heels to walk all the way from Pollock to the Forum–or to any class in general–but this glance sparked an idea for my next blog post. Are high heels harmful?
Answer: Yes.
Why?
Wearing high heels for extended periods of time can alter the way that you walk leading to long-term issues in your bones and joints. They may also lead to lower back issues, affecting the curvature or a change in the way the pelvis moves. They also promote ankle related injuries, according to The Guardian.
How?
Extended wear of heels will continually bend your toes in an unnatural position, causing
different ailments including ingrown toes, irreversible damage to leg tendons, etc. Also, your foot slides forward in shoes 2 inches or higher, redistributing your weight incorrectly. This increased weight on your toes causes you to overarch your back, making a posture that can strain your knees, hips and lower back, according to Dr. Natalie Nevins, an osteopathic physician.
Study?
A study done by professors from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, set out to prove the harm that is associated with high heel wearing. They investigated the movement behavior in 11 female subjects, either heel-wearing or barefoot. They walked on a motor-driven treadmill at 4 km/hr in two separate trials. The observations they saw displayed that high heel walking is characterized by a less predictable and more complex pattern than walking barefoot. Simply put, high heels increase risk of injury when walking as compared to no shoes at all.
Conclusion?
Avoid wearing heels for long periods of time, if at all possible. However, if you do need to wear them, try out thicker heels (wedges) because they are easier to balance in. Also, it is recommended to add soft insoles which will help reduce pressure on the body.
I found this blog to be so interesting because while I have never done any real research on it, I always thought that heels couldn’t be good for you. Something that causes physical pain, should not be worn in my opinion. While I completely agree and am not surprised with the outcome of the experiment, I think the sample size was too small. Having a sample size so small could definitely lead to chance playing a big factor in the outcome.
This is a really interesting blog post. It has some really great information. It doesn’t surprise me that heels are detrimental to your health because i am constantly complaining that I am in pain when I wear them. the next day my feet are always so sore. I liked how you mentioned the null-hypothesis and alternative hypothesis. I found some more information that I think you should check out!
I’m a guy so this really does not apply to e at all, but I have always wondered how girls can wear heels for an extended period of time because it looks very difficult and painful. Great use of studies to show how the statement that heels are harmful, but you could definitely take this in other directions. Maybe you could look at if certain companies make heels that aren’t as harmful? Or if there is any way to make heels that are more comfortable? Based on this blog, I do not understand why some girls wear heels so often even when it is very painful. I would love to learn more about these reasons.
No young fashionable lady wants to be told this, granted I can’t walk in heels but I wish I could! Although, the fact that heels are dangerous to your health makes perfect sense, I mean we all feel the pain when we wear them, its bound to have some lasting effects. The subject size of the study included in your blog is pretty small though and I think in the future an interesting study to conduct would be to compare the feet and health of a female model to a girl who doesn’t wear heels often or at all. Maybe revisit the two in the future and see the long lasting affects of wearing high heels a lot in comparison to barely wearing them at all.
I like the layout of this blog, because it got to the point quickly but expressed the harm in wearing heels over extended periods of time. i read this article from Women’s Health Magazine http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/high-heels which pinpoints the exact injuries/pains we feel when we wear heels. These pains are not just in our feet, but we can experience pain from high heels in our ankles, calves, hips and back. I think a study would need to be done to see what the difference between arch supporting shoes like Birkenstocks and high heels and compare the difference in injuries or pain in certain areas. Good job!
This does not surprise me one bit, I hate heels. When the science is explained it is easy to see why I hate them so much, they are literally breaking our feet. It would be helpful if more studies were done on them here, and if shoe companies actually took notice. I also wonder what the long term effects really are from heel wearing and if they could cause ailments such as arthritis in the knees and joints in the feet. At least we don’t still practice Chinese foot binding though! http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/why-footbinding-persisted-china-millennium-180953971/