Wearing High Heels

Wearing high heeled shoes make you look fashionable with a stylish walk and oodles of oomph. Stilettos can give your legs 'the miles long effect' which simply are a must for a night out - a 5" stiletto can add finishing touch to any outfit. Many women love the swishing gait that only high heels can give. Wearing high heels can cause a lot of muscle strain and sometimes permanent damage. Wearing high heels on a daily basis can cause back problems - causing lower back pains, and stress on knee joints can cause osteoarthritis.

Prolonged usage of heels can affect your posture, as wearing high heeled shoes place the heels of feet at an unnatural angle above the toes and throws the hips, shoulders, back and spine out of alignment and when this happens very often it results in severe lower back pains. The higher the heel - there is more pressure on the front foot this causes severe bruising and muscle fatigue.

Wearing a high heeled shoe puts the foot in a plantar flexed position (foot pointed down) with an increased amount of pressure on the fore foot the lower body leans forward to maintain balance, while the upper body leans backward which is abnormal.

At times you teeter around wearing high heels with hardly a thought to what your knees have to put up with. Balancing on heels throws the body forward while the knee remains flexed, this puts pressure on the inside of the knee which leads to osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease.

The muscles of the calf naturally contract when you walk on heels, with long term use of high heels these muscles shorten and tighten permanently. As you grow older and want to wear flat shoes you will feel that these muscles cannot expand easily and cause a lot of pain in the hips, knees and ankles.

In the very same way the Achilles tendon also becomes shorter and tighter with regular use of heels and this tendon at times becomes inflamed - which is known as tendinitis

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When you can walk like a model the last thing on mind is that, high heels put pressure on the hip muscles as the feet cannot propel the body forward with too much force on their own.

There are plenty more issues with wearing heels regularly, the constant pressure on the fore foot can lead to pain and hammertoes, bunions and neuromas which are all the result of toes which are forced into narrow and slim shoes along with pressure and tension from the position of the foot.

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Be sensible while shopping for shoes. Firstly the same size is not always correct as brands differ slightly. It is best to wear both shoes and walk a bit - at times many people have a foot which is larger than the other - so always buy shoes where the larger foot feels comfortable.

Don’t buy shoes which have a break-in period, always buy them only when your feet are comfortable when you try them.

Don’t buy shoes where the toe box is very narrow, the toes will develop ugly bumps and calluses.

Try to restrict wearing high heels only for special occasions take care to change back to your ½ inch pumps as quickly as you can.

Source-Medindia