Imagine confining 2,00,000 nerve endings, 26 bones (one fourth of all the bones in the body), 33 joints, over a 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments, and 2,50,000 sweat glands within a tight wrap or upon an uncomfortable platform for hours together. Well, that is exactly what we do when we put on our shoes or sandals!
Thankfully, this awareness is catching on, and barefoot walking — like many other lifestyle aspects we abandoned over the years — is making a comeback as a health funda . In fact, there are networks of people in the West, such as the The Barefoot Alliance and The Society for Barefoot Living, who walk barefoot wherever they go — to sleek offices, swanky malls, up-market restaurants and glitzy stadiums. Why, champion Olympian runners such as Abebe Bikila and Zola Budd have taken to barefoot running!
While our feet are designed to best aid our body’s movement and weight distribution, our footwear has largely evolved around cosmetic reasons and are categorised around a handful of sizes, though each foot has its own shape and strength. “Our feet arches are basically shock absorbers and disperse weight in such a way that they avoid injury to ankle, knee and other parts of the body. Barefoot walking preserves the mechanics of the feet, while footwear impedes this. While staying barefoot is best, wearing sandals or slippers are better than closed-toe shoes. Thinner soles are better, and heels are definitely injurious,” says A.B. Govindaraj, chief consultant orthopaedic and joint replacement surgeon, Fortis Malar.
Causing instability
“With heels in the footwear, the foot’s actual heel is automatically pushed up and the body is pushed forward, so the hip tilts back, the spine’s arch deepens, shoulders are thrown back and the knees are bent to create stability. This is not good for the heel, ankle, knee or hip joints,” explains Rajeev K. Sharma, senior consultant orthopaedic and joint replacement surgeon, Apollo Hospital, New Delhi.
“Foot arches are not present at birth and develop in infancy and early childhood. Giving the growing child’s feet free space to grow and allowing contact with varying terrain facilitates the formation of foot arches and feet strength,” says Dr. Sharma. This is why the American Podiatric Medical Association recommends that kids be barefoot as long as possible.
Obviously, walking barefoot is not possible in a country such as ours where broken glass and other debris are strewn around. But, we can avoid wearing footwear when we don’t need to — such as at gyms, homes, private gardens, clear stretches of beach sands, while driving the car, etc.
The barefoot advantage
- Less risk of injury to ankles, heel, knee and hip joints.
- Better strength and functioning of feet and leg muscles.
- Better posture, stride and spinal alignment.
- Less strain on hamstrings, shoulder, neck and hip muscles, which are otherwise strained to accommodate the forward tilt of the footwear heel.
- Less chance of conditions such as the stretching of the sole (plantar fasciitis), hammer toes, bunions (growth on the side of big toe), foot corns, sweating and nail fungus (especially in diabetics), ingrown nails, athlete’s foot etc.
- Healthy stimulation for the nerve endings on the bottom of the feet
- May improve proprioception (feedback to the brain) and improve sense of balance in the brain.
- Tip-toe exercises or just standing on bare toe-tips improves circulation of blood in feet and legs, and prevents varicose veins.
Who can’t go barefoot?
- People with diabetes who have less sensation in their legs.
- Those with orthopaedic issues such as flat feet.
- People with bow legs.
- The elderly who have lost foot-arch flexibility.
- Those with arthritis.
- Don’t walk on terrain that holds risk of injury (broken glass, nails, thorns…) or infection (unhygienic places and moist grounds with fungal spores, parasites, insects, reptiles and poisonous plants etc)
