‘If you’d asked me that 15 years ago, I would have said: ‘Absolute nonsense – it’s all genetics and shoes aren’t responsible for any problem,’” says Andrew Goldberg, consultant orthopaedic foot and ankle specialist at the Wellington hospital in London. But viewing 3D scans that show how people’s feet look while standing in their shoes changed his mind completely.
He took two scans of a person’s feet – one barefoot and one in high heels – and the difference was striking. In the high heels, the toes were crowded together, the big toe showed a bunion, and the smaller toes were clawed, gripping for balance.
“You can imagine that after a few hours your feet ache, and once you take the shoes off, your toes go back to normal,” he says. “But if you wear heels eight hours a day, every day, for years, things start to stick in that position.” Over time, the strain causes stretching of soft tissues, bunions, hammer toes – where the toes remain clawed – and, eventually, wear-and-tear arthritis.
All shoes, Goldberg says, influence foot shape to some degree, gradually steering the toes closer together and narrowing the foot profile. Tight or pointed shoes make this worse, and many people wear shoes that are too small for them.
If you’re a high-heel wearer, Goldberg recommends doing simple daily foot exercises, such as picking up objects with your toes or walking around barefoot on your tiptoes for a minute, to keep the feet flexible and the muscles strong.
Ultimately, he says, moderation is key: “If you wear heels for a dinner party, no problem. But don’t wear them all day, every day. The pain that you get at the end of an evening wearing heels is no wonder, because you’re causing a lot of stress to your poor foot.”
