High Heel Shoes Can Badly Damage Your Foot

Women Love to Wear High Heel Shoes

Be it in any occasion, at the wedding, party, or dinner, women just love to flaunt their toes in high heel shoes. They buy high heel thongs or open toed pumps to match with their outfit and make them look all the more stylish and gorgeous. High heel shoes are considered bad for your feet, but that hardly stops women from wearing them occasionally or daily! Various studies have shown that wearing high heel shoes can cause discomfort and lead to a number of health problems over the years.

How Dangerous are High Heel Shoes?

Rob Mair of the Australian Podiatry Association stated almost 90 percent of women say they are feeling pain within an hour of wearing high heel footwear. According to Australian podiatrists, maximum women come with feet problems like corns, calluses and ingrown nails due to wearing high-heels. Other foot related conditions are numbness, inflammation, tight Achilles tendons and foot deformities. In fact, Australian podiatrists say out of 10, 9 bunions are directly related with the shoes women wear. Maximum women tend to wear tight, narrow, high-heeled shoes according to the Australian Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society.

Bad Effects of High Heels

Wearing high heels make your legs look attractive; however they cause the back to arch and the chest to come forward, affecting your posture. High heel shoes lead to lower back pain. The spine and hip moves out of the normal body alignment while the knees have to bear too much pressure. Humans are designed to walk heel to toe but wearing high heels make a woman or girl walk toe to heel, just altering the foot position and how the foot will function. You will see the supermodels walking the ramp in high heel shoes putting pressure on their back, knees, and even neck. Podiatrists’ advice women to wear flat heel shoes since they keep the body in perfect posture, keep the calf muscles relaxed, and lead to even distribution of your body weight on the foot. While you may be the greatest admirer of high heels, by wearing them, you are actually affecting your body and feet in more than one way.  

High Heels Impacting the Structures of Your Body

Back 

High heels lead to pushing forward your centre of gravity resulting in bending the lower back to compensate for this. It leads to changing your spine position and putting pressure on nerves in the back. High-heels can be harmful if you are already suffering from facet joint arthritis and facet syndrome. High heel shoes compel an individual to lean forward and decreasing the forward curve of your lower back. This condition leads to overusing of the foot muscles and lower back pain. 

Posture

A high heel shoe makes your foot point downward, placing excessive pressure on the front position of your foot. This causes the rest of the body to adjust to maintain balance. The lower part of the body leans forward while the upper part must lean back to keep you in balance. 

Hips

The hip muscles are located on the upper front part of the thighs. Wearing high heels cause the hip muscles to work harder to help you walk. Overuse of hip flexor muscles leads to contraction and flattening of the lumbar or low-back spine.

Knees

Knee osteoarthritis is caused due to bending of the tibia (shin bone) when wearing high heels. The condition puts increased pressure on the inside of the knee (medial). High heels increase the distance from the floor to the knee increasing chances of osteoarthritis.

Solutions to Save Your Feet

Here are some solutions that can be taken into consideration if you still desire to wear high heels.

• Try not to wear high heel shoes for a longer period of time
• Stretch your leg muscles before and after wearing high heels
• Buy shoes that have two inches high heel
• Avoid wearing pointed toe shoes
• Buy shoes having leather insole to prevent slipping of the feet

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Colin Tan

Colin Tan is an ecommerce manager at MBT-Physiological Footwear. He is an experienced blogger as well. His comprehensive writing covers the field of health. He has written over several articles on it as such due to his fondness over health issues. He frequently blogs for MBT Shoes Australia. MBT Shoes are world sellers of the unique MBT patented curved sole, which are specifically designed for people to make people forget their back, knee and Achilles tendon problems.

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