Gait Happens with Foot Health Expert Dr. Courtney Conley! 1038

Looking back in history, like how did we get to this point where we're wearing these weirdly sized shoes that are way too small for the structure of our feet? We're using orthotics all the time.

We're having tons of problems that go all the way up the chain that start with the foot.

Like, how did we get here?

Yeah, the history of footwear is quite the story.

Because if you look at really how footwear first came to be, it was simply protection.

It was protection from the elements.

It was just let me put something small, thin between my foot and the ground just to protect it.

And then things started to happen.

You know, one example is there's a great study that looked at the skeletal remains of humans from the 12th and 13th centuries in the 14th and 15th centuries.

And they wanted to, they were looking at feet.

And they noticed that in the 14th and 15th centuries, that there was more of a prevalence of hallux valgus or bunions in these people's feet that they didn't see in the 12th and 13th centuries.

And if you look at the history there, what was introduced during that time period were the Krakows or the Poulains, those medieval shoes that were like very pointy.

Wow.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

And they found that most of these cases of bunions were actually in men.

not women which we tend to associate now um and so the the men were the ones that had these changes in their foot and those were the people those were the you know people wearing those types of shoes so i find that to be very interesting that there is this correlation between what we're putting on our feet and you know fashion has overridden function as time has gone by and we have been warned There is many cases of scientists saying, hey, this is not what you want to be doing to your feet.

And unfortunately, we have ignored that.

Are you saying I should stop wearing those shoes? I don't have the conversation of always or never.

You know what I mean? I'll piss a lot of people off.

It's like if we're going to win this conversation and win this, you have to meet people where they are.

So if you want to wear this shoe for X amount of time in the book, we call it a 24 hour shoe clock.

Just pay attention.

If you're gonna go out to dinner or you wanna wear this type of shoe, by all means, go ahead.

But the rest of the time that your foot is on the ground, wear something that simply respects the anatomy of your foot.

I don't think that's a big ask.