Ouch: High Heels' Effects on the Body

[Shomore]

Wow, does this pict from the Washington Post dissuade you from wearing high heels?

How about Certifiable Princess' blog with rather unslightly feet pictures like the hammertoe?

Still nothing? Sigh, what we women do in the name of fashion.

[shoesense]

I've been preaching to the deaf about this for years. Now, I'm a true convert, you know--when I can wear fabulous AND comfortable shoes, why would I need the pain that comes from the "fabulosity" (and I use this term tongue-in-cheek) of spike heels?

Here's another article, this time from a Body Building magazine: High Heeled Shoes and Muculoskeletal Problems. It basically discusses the same problems presented in that graphic, and adds a few factoids (e.g., women have about 90 percent of the nearly 800,000 annual surgeries for neuromas, bunions, and "hammer toes"), and a few study summaries that support the same idea--high heels are pernicious to your body postures, feet, ankles, and knees.

A little bit of heel (1 to 2) inches would cure most of the pains and aches and long-term health problems associated with high heels, if women were willing to make that compromise. But how willing could they be when they (we!) get bombarded every single second of every single day with images of 'femininity' and 'high fashion' that we are supposed to emulate to be fully 'actualized' as women?

Stilettos have become sort of the corsets of our time--they make us look "beautiful" and "feminine"--but at the expense of our health, and definitely not for our benefit. Psychologically, they may prop our self-esteem and confidence and whatnot, but personally, I wish we could find better, healthier ways to boost that morale and confidence in our own beauty.

[JuneHawk]

I am a firm believer that everything in moderation is OK. If you wear high heels all the time, yes, you can have complications. However, alternating heels and flats while giving your feet and legs time to rest is OK too. Proper fitting shoes are also a key element.

Almost everything we do has an impact on our health and well being but that doesn't mean we should completely eliminate them.

June

[shoesense]

If high heels were always used in moderation, all the time, these issues would never even been brought up. Obviously, there's something more going on. I think that the social imperative that you "must" wear something that causes discomfort to "truly" look beautiful is something that we have to fight against. So you're right--it's not about the "elimination" of high heels--just of the way we look at beauty, the expectation to conform, all the time, and the excesses made in the name of "sexiness."