The Benefits of Going Barefoot

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We all remember being kids and playing barefoot outside. I grew up in a rural community and so shoes were optional when it came to playing on the front lawn, climbing trees or even running down the street to play with a nearby neighbor. At some point, shoes became compulsory and the thought of going barefoot somewhere other than at the pool or the beach was simply not entertained. It Cheap Canada Goose Ontario Parka is generally accepted that shoes are better for the health of our feet. After all, it is dirty outside! Of course we want to avoid the garbage, cigarette butts, broken glass and other disgusting things our feet might come across if we gave them full range of our streets. And besides, don't our shoes give us much-needed arch support? Don't they help to correct all the things that are structurally wrong with our feet?

I definitely have to agree with our ancestors who first deemed shoes necessary and created them thousands of years ago. But people who promote barefoot lifestyles such as the Society of Barefoot Living have a valid point also. These people argue that shoes interfere with healthy foot function. In fact, recent studies have shown that populations who go without shoes have a remarkably lower number of foot injuries and deformities such as fallen arches, cavus foot, bunions, heel pain, arch pain and hammertoe. In other words, people living without shoes have healthier feet.

Our feet, after all, were designed to do what they do. Comprised of 28 bones, our feet are extremely subtle machines whose Cheap Canada Goose Manitoba Parka flexibility and ease of motion no shoe can rival. Consider walking shoes, for example. These shoes are designed with “specialty features” such as a heel rocker and a flared toe. Why? Because without these features, we are unable to roll correctly through our feet - a motion that we perform naturally when we go barefoot. Shoes force our feet into unnatural (and unhealthy) patterns of motion, which we then have to correct by adding Cheap Canada Goose Heli-Arctic Parka “special features” to our shoes.

Now I'm not advocating that we give up shoes altogether. I simply think it is well worth our while to give our feet a chance to go barefoot on a regular basis. Walking or running barefoot on the beach is extraordinarily good for the health of your arches. It is often prescribed by podiatrists who are treating patients with flat feet or cavus Cheap Canada Goose Dawson Parka .