Archive for the ‘feet’ tag
The Case for Bare Feet #
Adam Sternbergh has an interesting piece in New York about how shoes may be the reason that Americans have so many foot problems. Be warned that reading this article may make you want to (1) throw away all the shoes you own, and/or (2) buy some Vivo Barefoots or Vibram Five Fingers. A snippet:
The study examined 180 modern humans from three different population groups (Sotho, Zulu, and European), comparing their feet to one another’s, as well as to the feet of 2,000-year-old skeletons. The researchers concluded that, prior to the invention of shoes, people had healthier feet. Among the modern subjects, the Zulu population, which often goes barefoot, had the healthiest feet while the Europeans—i.e., the habitual shoe-wearers—had the unhealthiest. One of the lead researchers, Dr. Bernhard Zipfel, when commenting on his findings, lamented that the American Podiatric Medical Association does not “actively encourage outdoor barefoot walking for healthy individuals. This flies in the face of the increasing scientific evidence, including our study, that most of the commercially available footwear is not good for the feet.”