Here's how to walk your way to wellbeing over the holiday season: in shoes that are good for you and don't look like something only your grandmother would wear.
The shoe industry is realising it is possible to blend function, safety and comfort with design to make fashionable, funky and gorgeous footwear.
Local manufacturers have gone a step further to produce shoes specially designed for South African feet.
Among brands that are as easy on the eye as they are on the feet, are Froggie, Angels, Planet and Tsonga.
Anette Thompson understands just why we need shoes specially for local women.
She is a podiatrist doing PhD research on South African women's feet. She has finished in Gauteng, is now in KwaZulu Natal, and expects to do the Western Cape early next year.
She says we are ruining our health with the wrong shoes.
“A badly fitting bra won't kill you,” says Thompson. “Badly fitting shoes worn for long enough just might, especially if you are diabetic.”
She says a lot of footwear is based on outdated measurements dating back to British colonial days and unsuitable for the diversity of South African feet.
Measurements have been modified through trial and error to suit local women, but around 80% of women still report foot problems from ill-fitting shoes.
Her research shows that US and European shoes suit only around 20% of local women.
The recent flood of imports from the Far East and elsewhere may be “disastrous” for our feet, she says.
They're based on foreign foot proportions, even when attempts have been made to “Westernise” them.
She says foot size, shape and proportions differ between different ethnic groups, based on genetics and lifestyle habits – like more barefoot walking.
Her study results so far support the direction some local manufacturers have taken, and some national averages based on old measurements have changed.
But there is a need for a database of three-dimensional measurements to represent all local women's feet.
She has invented a device that integrates a commercial 3D laser scanner to capture the weight-bearing 3D foot images on computer.
Thompson says the real challenge is educational and to hone a skill almost lost: knowing how to measure and fit a shoe to a local woman's foot.
Local manufacturers are doing a good job, despite lack of data, but need science on their side. They do have the law: all shoes and clothing sold in the country must carry a label showing where it was made.
“Women can now choose locally made shoes for their health's sake,” Thompson says.
Shoes must protect the feet and facilitate full function.
If not, they place the feet in unnatural positions, causing muscles to compensate via biomechanical imbalances.
This can cause problems such as corns, toe deformities, spinal deformities, joint pain, and dysfunction of abdominal organs. top.DisplayAds('Pos7',2,229);
That doesn't mean women can't ever wear shoes that are stunning but not particularly good for their feet – like altitudinous platforms or vertiginous killer-heel stilettos.
“Just don't wear them for long,” she says.
An hour or two is fine, “but not every day and vary your heel heights”.
Her research is sponsored by the University of Johannesburg, the Department of Trade and Industry, and partners in the shoe industry, including the SA Footwear and Leather Industries Association which represents the makers of lasts (foot forms or mould from which footwear is made), and around 80 shoe factories.
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