Negative Impact Of Shoes On Peple’s Health

The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius. " Faster, Higher, Stronger. And athletes have fulfilled that motto rapidly. The winner of the 2012 Olympic marathon ran 42. 195km in 2 hours and 8 minutes. He was hour and half minutes faster than the winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon.

Now we all have this feeling that we're somehow just getting better as a human race, but it's not like we've evolved into a new species in a century. So, what's going on here? Basically, improvement in human species was due to technology, called shoes. Think about shoes itself. Shoes itself is a technology. This technology made basketball player jump higher, sprinters run faster, and weight lifters stronger. So I want to ask question here: Did shoes really improve the quality of our life? Did shoes really help people get healthier? However, have you ever thought about why professional athletes have such short career and retire so early? Why people suffer from wrecked body structure? Why people have acquired flat-foot? Why people get skin disease on your feet? Against all the expectations, technology of shoes has brought negative affect to people causing more injuries.

Originally human body structure was mainly built to walk on bare foot. Our ancestors have been running for a million years or more on barefoot. It has only been about several 1, 000s of years that we have been wearing shoes. If it weren’t for the shoes, we would have walked very differently. When we walk on barefoot, the foot lands almost flat. This is human natural body reflection to reduce impact. It puts about 12% less stress on the knees. We have walked like this for millennia. However, creation of modern shoes has changed how people walk.

People started to take longer strides which made people land on their heels first. Since we don’t roll through the step, foot stopped being as flexible. Most runners in shoes usually land on their heel first which inevitably generates sudden impact. In other words, it's like someone hitting you on the heel with a hammer, about 2~3 times your body weight. Unfortunately, shoes are accelerating humans towards unhealthy life. Main acquired symptom (disease) that people don’t realize include: pronation (collapsed arch or flat-feet), joint pain, back pain, to name a few. For example, when I was in the USA, I was in the X-country and Track and field team for about 4 years. I nearly spent 2~3 hours running and training. Every training was so intense putting burden on my body. Thinking that soft shoes will prevent from injury, I had running shoes for Monday, shoes for Tuesday, shoes for Wednesday and so on only for my training. Back then, I gradually felt that my left foot was not normal like before, however, I simply ignored not knowing I was ruining my whole-body structure. Later when I went to University as a physical therapy major, I found out that my left foot has already become flat-feet. Because of running with shoes that does not fit me. I found out that it takes lots of time for our foot to adopt to new shoes. However, I have been changing my running shoes every time… so now I am suffering from flat feet.

Another compelling example that shoes negatively affect human health can be found from “Masai Shoes”, a functional footwear that targeted elderly people who needed to exercise. Their muscles and joints were malfunctioning and functionally degraded because of their age. Therefore, running was burden and caused side effects to old people, so walking became so popular because it was relatively less burdening exercise. Initially, the purpose of Masai shoes was to bring back health to people without any injury. Masai walking shoes manufacturers said “It helps to use the entire sole of the foot and distributes the weights. However, later found out that this shoes unconsciously made people walk without using their leg muscles. Because of this, some people lost entire leg muscle and were not able to walk anymore. These examples clearly show that shoes technology isn’t always good for people.

Humans have been shattering the perfection of their own feet with every step since they first put on shoes. Everyone who wears shoes walks wrong. Changing technology might have brought innovation in sports and our life style. However, shoes are slowly deteriorating our health. It is harming your body parts in ways that you have never even thought of. Shoes are only for your own comfort. Imagine putting a cast on your hand when you were 3 years old and never took it off. Your arm would stop working. That's kind of what's happened with our feet. Footwears can be thought as perpetual cast. Why would every other mammal on the planet be able to depend on its legs except humans? Of course, barefoot walking isn’t always feasible. We have to continues to wear shoes as a protection against glass, dirt and gross things. However, it is good reason to find time to go shoeless.