There is a very nice article about letting kids go barefoot at education.com, which describes itself as “An education & child development site for parents”> The article is Why Barefoot is Best. It has a ton of good information, and some practical hints for letting kids go barefoot more.
But they just cannot leave it at, and throw in mythical caveats at the end.
It really is a great article, highlighting Simon Wikler’s 1961 book, “Take off your shoes and walk”. It talks about how going barefoot (particularly with growing feet) gives greater flexibility and strength.
In addition, a number of studies of children in cultures that don’t habitually wear shoes show strong arches and ankles, and no flat feet!
Then they consult with a modern podiatrist:
New York City podiatrist Sherri Greene agrees, pointing out that “young children’s feet need to have a free connection to the earth.” And although shoes in themselves are not the enemy, children’s shoes should be soft and protective, not rigid. “We have to wear shoes in the world to protect the feet,” she says, but adds that “the intrinsic muscles of the foot are not exercised in shoes all day.”
Continuing, it gives suggestions for more barefoot time for kids, “Barefeet at home”, “Barefeet in nature” (even suggesting barefoot hiking!), “Barefoot games” (picking up objects with toes), “Don’t wear athletic shoes all day”.
But that is where the article starts to go astray, and their podiatrist (Dr. Greene, above) just starts spouting her unsupported myth.
When talking about athletic shoes, she correctly notes
[A] recent study has shown that the wearing of athletic shoes actually contributes to arthritis of the knee, probably because each step is so cushioned that the wearer is not feeling the ground under the sole of the foot, and the body doesn’t make the muscle adjustments to align the bones for stability (Arthritis Rheum., 2006).
But she nonetheless says that athletic shoes are needed for after school sports: “Of course, for after-school sports, a good supportive sneaker is important to protect the foot”.
Hold it. She just told us about how going barefoot strengthens all those muscles. Strong muscles don’t need support. Yeah, the kid probably has to wear an athletic shoe for after-school sports, but that is only because the kid’s coach also believes in the support myth (as do their competition rules, for the same reason).
Their podiatrist continues off the rails with the final suggestion:
Don’t wear flip-flops all day. As far as the adolescent fashion to wear flip-flops all day, even to school, Dr. Greene says, “this is not beneficial” to the feet. “They are just not supportive enough.” Compromise with your teen and find some stylish, yet supportive, sandals.
Huh? Go barefoot (without support) to build up the feet’s muscles, but don’t wear flip-flops because they are not supportive enough? How can she hold these two contradictory thoughts in her head at the same time?
Yes, people who start to wear flip-flops after a winter of not doing so may experience some soreness, but that’s because they’ve let their foot muscles go soft over the winter. Of course, it is best to re-strengthen them by going barefoot, not wearing flip-flops, but blaming flip-flops for lack of support is like blaming huffing and puffing after a sedentary winter on your singlet.
[H/T: Kent Wadenpfuhl]
Good find Bob! This is actually an older article from a few years ago. I refrenced it in a blog entry last year. I however never critiqued the sandles vs. flipflops argument in my entry. Mine focused on the barefoot part.
In situations like this, I think the mythical liability monster is to blame for people adding these sorts of silly and contradictory caveats. There is this irrational fear that if somebody should ever be injured whilst following any suggestion whatsoever, no matter how beneficial, that they will be sued.
You see similar behaviour with regard to weightlifting. Any weight coach worth his salt will tell you that free weights are the key to building useful strength. How much simpler could it get? Find something heavy; lift it up; get strong.
Nevertheless, you can find a million “how-to” articles online that will recommend lifting free weights but then litter the article with absurd caveats that speak of possible injury from the use of free weights. They will then make recommendations for using the “safer” weight machines which, though they may be safer in terms of immediate use, are actually more dangerous since they don’t make the user stronger in any kind of useful way. The user only learns to lift with a cable-pulley-track system and never learns the balance and coordination that are necessary to lift an object without the “training wheels”.
Interestingly enough, yesterday a chiropractor told me that I needed to wear shoes since being barefoot causes collapsed arches. I didn’t really even know how to respond to that.
I can see two causes for the prejudice against bare feet. First was the hookworm problem, already fading when I was a child in the 1930s. The shoe manufacturers took full advantage of this problem, only to be interrupted by WW-II. After the war, building on the fact that the only country to have a significant portion of their army barefooted (Ethiopia), and they lost against the mechanized might of Italy, started the campaign of a different shoe for each different purpose, and the profits and power flowed from there – thus the school sports requirement.
It would seem that part of encouragement of bare feet would require addressing the manipulative economic power of the other side. After all, a large number of kids around the world play soccer barefooted, and if they can do that, anything should be possible without shoes.
I’m happy to report I’ve finally run my first race barefooted. Lots of amusing comments from the spectators and fellow runners. Thanks for the good reading. Cheers!
Here in New Zealand it is common for our high school kids to do all athletics and PE barefoot. The gym has a sign on the door that says: Two types of footwear are acceptable in the gym, sports shoes or bare feet. When our kids practise for a sport like volleyball or basketball they generally do so barefoot (probably 80-90% are anyway). When they go to the actual tournaments though the coach of our team insists they wear shoes even though bare feet are allowed. Generally there will be one or two boys per volleyball team in bare feet but our coach and some others consider this a sign of laziness and won’t let our boys play if they forget their sports shoes.
Most cross country running is done barefoot in PE class (but that does mean running around local streets) but when they do our cross-country run day for the whole school the kids are encouraged to wear shoes and maybe 80% do. It’s just funny how there are just different standards for doing the same sport depending on the context.
Of course you’ll be aware our primary school kids (age 5-11 or 13 depending on the school) mostly go barefoot all day at school. Generally their parents do send them in shoes though. Probably about 10% of kids arrive at school without shoes in mornings but they usually then take them off to go into classrooms or to play and leave them off so that 75-90% walk home from school barefoot and then stay that way the rest of the day. It’s funny so many parents bother putting them in shoes pretty much just for the walk to school. Intermediate schools (age 11-13) have high school style uniforms and kids have to walk there and home in shoes but are allowed to be barefoot all day once inside the school gates. So there are again varying standards applied for kids based on age.
Ah, the hookworm problem. People see a problem created by people dumping faeces in the streets and, naturally, decide that the problem is not, in fact, people dumping crap in the street, but rather people walking through it.