Written by Georgette Dutoit, Restorative Foot Therapist
Georgette is a Leading Pioneer in Restorative Foot Therapy. Fusing knowledge from her Apache roots with modern Scientific Studies, she created an updated holistic approach to naturally relieve common Foot Pains. She's also the Creator of PediPower, a first of its kind Foot Center including Foot Therapy, Education, and multi-brand Barefoot Shoes.
Shoes are often seen as a necessary part of our daily attire, but have you ever considered how they affect the natural shape and function of your feet? Much like the corsets of the past, modern footwear reshapes and restricts, leading to long-term health issues. Discover how our obsession with fashion over function has compromised foot health, and why it's time to rethink the way we treat our feet.
The last corset of modern fashion
Have you ever asked yourself why shoes are the only article of clothing that are designed to hinder and reshape the form they’re worn on?
Would you wear pants that didn’t allow your knees to bend and held your legs together, or a shirt that forced your head and neck into a looking-up position and crushed your arms so tightly to your sides that you couldn’t move them? Imagine wearing thick gloves every day that bound your fingers so tightly it prevented them from feeling any sensation, eventually causing them to ache and become so deformed that they couldn’t work properly.
Why then do we accept that it’s normal for us to wear shoes that crush, immobilize, distort, sensory-deprive, and ultimately deform our feet?
How did we come to believe that this form of painful, compromising, and ultimately debilitating article of clothing is normal for our feet?
Looking back
Thousands of years ago, we managed to walk across the Earth– and survive these long migrations – without proper arch support, toe rockers, and thickly cushioned shoes.
Either bare, covered in soft animal skin or malleable plant materials, feet were able to move and work as intended; splaying, reacting, and bouncing us along unencumbered. Foot muscles could develop optimally, foot bone alignment was unobstructed, and sensory input was constant. Our feet were strong, reactive and smart, able to fine tune our body’s balance and stability systems.
As we settled and developed, ideals about what we wore on our feet and why took a new turn.
A closer look at the history of Western shoe development seems to show human vanity and insecurities a major cause of the development of modern shoe shapes.
Then, and even now – although not true – a taller stature was considered a sign of good health, promoting ideals of strength, intelligence, even leadership abilities.
Those that were not genetically gifted the bonus of height – and could afford it – could utilize the visual element of elongated, tapered shoe tips to aid their vertical presence, hopefully presenting better chances of taller opportunities.
For the more affluent the luxury of keeping horses for quicker travels, more efficient hunting, and leisure time games developed. Riding shoes for these occasions evolved a heel to keep the rider’s foot secure in the stirrup.
The addition of heels to long pointed shoes quickly became an aid to add more height to those feeling vertically challenged. Eventually, women were also allowed to join this shoe revolution. Much to the notice and delight of men, the compromises these shoes produced on female bodies made them more appealing to patriarchal standards – forcing the buttocks and bosoms into protruding positions, elongating the legs, and hindering the feet of speedy flight.
Caught in a loop
This new shoe enlightenment quickly caused new problems for the feet. Foot deformities of painful hallux valgus, neuromas, fasciitis, knee pains, hip pains, and so on soon became normal conditions amongst those that could afford modern shoes.
As modern medical systems were also developing, so too did the need for finances to support these systems. Those that could afford good medical care would not be delighted to give up the status their expensive vanity shoes suggested, and thus new ways around foot problems were developed.
Creatively addressing the debilitating foot deformities caused by ill shaped shoes was done with the intervention of targeted surgeries, orthotic supports, injections, and also the development of theories that these types of foot problems were inherited family traits.
However, all of these methods were – and are – only fleeting when the root of the problem remains.
Current status
In some ways, humans are slow learners. Look at how long it’s taken us to realize faster food production causes us a significant amount of health problems or what the residual effects of using fossil fuels to make our lives more efficient have ultimately produced.
We’re trying to make things better for these situations, but it’s difficult when we’ve set up whole intricate, interconnected processes to support things we now see are not working out in the long run.
The same goes for modern shoes. Without thinking past cultural vanities and considering the long-term effects it physically cause us, we’ve conveniently danced around the elephant in the room and set up a whole system that doesn’t address the fundamental issues, keeping us painfully in denial and damaging our longevity.
The inconvenient truth about modern shoes is that they deform, compromise, atrophy, and ultimately debilitate our feet, causing us much pain and eventually loss of basic stability and mobility as we age.
No matter how many bunion surgeries, arch supports, injections, calf stretches, and towel toe-gripping we do, nothing will work long-term if we keep wearing non-foot-shaped, heel-raising, overly cushioned, arch-blocking shoes.
Back to the future of footwear
The Covid years of 2020 and 2021 forced us to make new lifestyle changes and reflect on our long-term health. The modern consumer slowly started to realize not only that a significant time out of their shoes produced a return to their more natural foot shape, but also the detriment of regular shoes to their everyday lives, sports, and future selves.
This led to new reflections of lost standards.
Think back to the traditional Moccasins, the footwear of Indigenous people who walked across natural terrains farther than we can today imagine. They wore foot shaped shoes made of soft reactive materials that allowed basic protection with maximum movement and sensory feedback.
These standards have recently been revived and are now called Barefoot Shoes.
Barefoot Shoes are foot shaped, flexible, flat soled shoes that mimic the norms of the traditional Indigenous Moccasin, but with a current style flare.
Although still very much a specialty item in a niche market, Barefoot Shoes styles and production are steadily growing as we become tired of constant foot pain, of spending time and money on methods that don’t remedy the problem and done with living in fear of the repercussions of falling down as we age.
We are currently creating a Shoevolution that is picking up speed and taking us back to the future of restoring our physical foundation to its strongest and most natural shape.
If you’d like to learn more about the development of the modern shoe and the natural power of human feet a good read is “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall, and check out PediPower for alternative foot therapy options and traditional brick-C-mortar Barefoot Shoe shopping offers that will take you away from pain and closer to better mobility as you age.
Read more from Georgette Dutoit
Georgette Dutoit, Restorative Foot Therapist
After a body and life altering sledding accident in Switzerland, Surgeons, Doctors, and Physical Therapists from Zürich's Swiss Olympic Medical Center agreed Georgette would face a lifetime of Pain Management and Orthotic Aids. Drawing on her knowledge from growing up Barefooting the rocky cliffs and tidepools of Southern California's and Mexico's coastlines, her Apache Roots, and updated findings in Sports Science, Georgette made a medically unimaginable recovery – without residual pain and orthotics. She's now using these protocols to help others realize their full mobility potentials, and has opened PediPower, a Concept Foot Center in Zürich, Switzerland including Foot Therapy, Education, and multi-brand Barefoot Shoes.
