Foot Care: 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Feet

Foot Care: Your feet are more complicated and dynamic than you think. They’re more delicate than they look and they put up with a lot of abuse. Here are 7 things we bet you didn’t know about your feet. Maybe once you get to know them a little better, you’ll be less likely to torture them with uncomfortable shoes.

Things You Didn’t Know About Your Feet

1. There are 52 bones in each of your feet. That’s 25% of the bones in your body. And uncomfortable shoes can warp many of those bones permanently. There are almost as many shoe-related foot deformities as there are bones in your feet. Keep shoving those delicate bones into uncomfortable shoes and you’ll end up with bone spurs, hammer toes, and other conditions that make your feet ugly and sometimes painful to walk in.

2. The average human being takes 10,000 steps per day. And by the time they’re done walking for good, they will have walked an equivalent to the distance between the Earth and the moon (250,000 miles). That is a really long way to walk in uncomfortable shoes. If you had to go on a 250,000-mile walk, why go about it in pain in pointy shoes? A comfy pair of flats sounds like a much better idea. To make matters even worse, the people who wear the most uncomfortable shoes tend to walk the farthest. Women, on average, walk three more miles a day than the average man.

3. Your feet have 25,000 sweat glands. And each of those sweat glands is constantly producing sweat. Each foot produces more than a cup of moisture each day. And if you exercise or walk a lot or cram your feet in tight, suffocating shoes, that amount can exceed one pint a day. That’s one pint of sweat trapped in those tight, pinching shoes. And the sweatier your feet are, the more they stink. Foot odor is caused when decomposing foot protein is exposed to sweat. So instead of blaming foot fungus for your smelly dogs, maybe you should blame your shoes. Switch to a comfortable pair with a little breathing room and people will stop leaving the room whenever you take off your shoes.

4. Your feet keep growing after the rest of you do. Sixty percent of women experience foot growth well after their 20th birthday. And there’s just no growing room in the shoes you’re wearing now. Keep them pinched and they may grow right into the shape of your pointy shoes. That’s going to be tough to explain come summer sandal season. If you don’t want your feet to look like they were grown in shoes, switch to comfortable pairs that give you room to grow.

5. Those heels are making your butt look big. Seriously. Wearing high heels makes you but stick out 25% more than it would usually. That’s fine if you’re a supermodel looking to get into Victoria’s Secret spread. But for most women, a bigger posterior is the last thing that they need. Switching to comfortable shoes can make you look like you’ve dropped 10 lbs. virtually overnight.

6. Your foot gets larger as the day goes on; about 5% larger to be exact. That aching you feel in your feet at the end of the day has more to do with shrinking space in your shoes than all the walking that you did. That extra end-of-day squeeze moves your bones around, encourages callous and bunion growth, and makes that tedious last hour of the workday that much harder to bear. To avoid unnecessary punishment, switch to a pair of shoes that give your feet some growing room.

Also Read: Preventing Injuries To Your Feet

7. Uncomfortable shoes cause back problems in 80% of the population; that’s Eighty per cent of the population. That means that all of the blame you place on picking up your three-year-old, your uncomfortable chair at work, and your terrible mattress is misplaced (you have some apologizing to do). The fault really lies with those uncomfortable shoes in your closet. The heels that you let pinch your toes and burn your heels are also wreaking havoc on your back