ZOMG! High Heels Don’t Cause Bunions, New Study Reveals

[Ahcuah]

There was a study that came out last month that the media touted as proving that high heels, and shoes, don't cause bunions. It's really just genetics.

The study did no such thing. I took at much closer look at it, and the media coverage, in a blog entry.

ZOMG! High Heels Don’t Cause Bunions, New Study Reveals​

by Ahcuah​

Or at least that’s the title of this article at that wretched hive of misinformation, the Huffington Post. I’ve written before about Huffpo HuffPoo and More HuffPo HuffPoo: The Annual Flip-Flop Warning.

But this time they’ve outdone themselves.


What they’ve done is show themselves to be totally incapable of reading a (fairly simple) scientific paper. But to be fair (kind of), they obviously didn’t read the scientific paper. All they did was look at somebody else’s article—somebody else who also didn’t read the scientific paper.

Keep reading at http://ahcuah.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/zomg-high-heels-dont-cause-bunions-new-study-reveals/

 

[NickW]

Great read Achuah. I need to keep this bookmarked for my inlaws. They have argued with me that they just had poor genetics and that's why they have foot problems, it's not the cowboy boots that they wear... Hmmmmm, seems to me they've been duped.

 

[Longboard]

Like most things, it's a combination.
Great genes allow someone to wear ridiculous shoes if they desire without any deforming consequences,
while average genes will end up biting the wearer of stupid shoes given enough time.
Truly $ucky genes will cause even a barefooter to eventually bunionize, but that's extremely rare.
The point is that for the majority of people if they stay away from shoes they will not develop that type of abnormality.

 

[BarefootDevilDog]

I find it remarkable that people can look at the shape of some of the shoes out there and even think about trying to put their feet into them. What's more astounding are the ones who refuse to even consider the possibility that doing so might cause them lasting harm. I'll never forget my shock when I first heard about women getting botox injections in their feet in order to continue wearing high heels.

 

[Longboard]

There are podiatrists who perform surgery on perfectly normal feet in order to cut off sections of phalangial bones in order to shorten certain toes enough that the end result fits well into specific designer's shoes.
Yet to the eye of the general public, it still is US who are strange.

 

[Sid]

Yet to the eye of the general public, it still is US who are strange.

The general public is, on average, overweight, sedentary, and in poor health for a first world country. Who cares what the general public thinks?

 

[Longboard]

Who cares what the general public thinks?

Certainly not me!

 

[Ahcuah]

The general public is, on average, overweight, sedentary, and in poor health for a first world country. Who cares what the general public thinks?

Well, I generally don't care, except the "general public" are the ones who put up NSNSNS signs, or falsely claim health codes, or support administrators of libraries and other governmental bodies that impose barefoot restrictions.

 

[Longboard]

Yeah the ignorance of the general public does waste a lot of my time when I'm just trying to go about my daily life barefoot.

 

[Mayka]

Like most things, it's a combination.
Great genes allow someone to wear ridiculous shoes if they desire without any deforming consequences,
while average genes will end up biting the wearer of stupid shoes given enough time.
Truly $ucky genes will cause even a barefooter to eventually bunionize, but that's extremely rare.
The point is that for the majority of people if they stay away from shoes they will not develop that type of abnormality.

I agree. I think that it's incredibly unusual to get bunions if you never wear shoes, just as you can have a genetic predisposition to diabetes but never get it if your diet is not conducive to developing it.

Actually, I think that barring unusual genetic defects, no part of the human body is prone to being defective. I think our bodies are designed to be completely functional, and it's only outside influences that change this. There's evidence that myopia (nearsightedness) is primarily accommodation by the body in response to prolonged close work, such as reading. Myopia is almost unknown in societies without literacy. There is also evidence that crooked teeth are not genetic, but rather caused by insufficient nutrition both in gestation and in the early years. It's thought that the absence of essential nutrients (that were abundant in primitive diets) will cause a narrowing of the face, with crooked teeth as the result.

That being said, I can speak to the genetic component of bunions first-hand. I was one of those people that never wore high heels or pointy-toed shoes because I found them uncomfortable, but despite this I have mild bunions on both feet at age 24 (I get that predisposition from my father). My mother does wear pointy-toed shoes and high heels and has absolutely zero bunions, despite her big toe pointing in much farther than mine. But the point is, if I had never worn shoes in my life I wouldn't have bunions! That's not really primarily genetics, but our environment.

We cannot take the human body out of the conditions under which it evolved and not expect there to be some negative consequences for many people. Most Western medicine tends to treat the symptoms, not the cause. In some cases this may be unavoidable (such as myopia in civilized society; it may well be that literacy is worth the trade-off of perfect vision, though often corrective lenses only make myopia worse, so even this is less-than-ideal), but in others (such as poor nutrition causing crooked teeth) it makes far more sense to treat the cause rather than treat the symptoms after-the-fact.

 

[scedastic]

Seeing small children in high heels always makes me.....sigh.

I've seen plenty of kindergarteners (YES) at my kids' school wearing high heels semi regularly. I ask my kids" how can they play on the playground with those on" my kids say"they either take off their shoes or have to sit out and not play"