Love affairs end in a broken heart. Mine ended in a tortured foot. For 20 years, I lavished time, affection and money on a sadist. Commonly known as the pump, the killer heel cons women out of their wits with the allure of haute couture. Some countries are so hooked on high heels that women are forced to wear them at work. But there is a growing legion of “zero drop” devotees ditching stilettos for a barefoot revolution.
I stumbled into the barefoot revolution like a bewildered bloke caught up in a Reclaim the Night rally. I woke up one morning, got out of bed and fell over. My right foot had gone on strike. It held the picket line for months as doctors and specialists puzzled over the cause. No amount of scolding, coaxing, meditation, medication or mind over matter worked. Little bastard, as I called it, had a severe case of oppositional defiance disorder.
After several misdiagnoses and fruitless diagnostic tests, the injury was revealed as nerve damage. It is a common condition, especially among runners, dancers and Western women over the age of 40. Doctors believe wearing Western-style shoes with raised heels and narrow toe boxes can lead to such damage over time. Online shopping has worsened the problem of buying ill-fitting shoes. Treatment options range from ongoing specialist care with orthotics to more invasive procedures and surgery.
After researching the condition, I decided to try an alternative route for a year and return to the doctor if needed. I chose to ditch the high-fashion footwear and buy a pair of sensible minimalist shoes, the kind you imagine a prison warden might don to ward off leery jailbirds.
In the search for ugly shoes to punish little bastard, I stumbled into a field of questionable research filled with barefoot running devotees who swore by journalist Christopher McDougall’s 2009 bestseller, Born to Run. McDougall was a runner who had developed a foot injury that forced him to stop. The question of why his foot hurt led him to an adventure with Mexico’s Tarahumara tribe, known for incredible endurance running in basic sandals without the injuries common to Western joggers. The book inspired a barefoot running craze that took America by storm only to peter out when devotees developed injuries from transitioning to minimalist shoes with too much zeal. The nail in the coffin was a lawsuit against Vibram, the company that made the five-fingered shoe so popular among celebrities it was spotted on the red carpet. The class action was brought by Valerie Bezdek, who claimed the company deceived customers by suggesting, without proper scientific evidence, that the shoes could decrease injuries and strengthen foot muscles. In 2014, Vibram settled for $US3.75m, but denied any wrongdoing alleged in the class actions.
Years later, the scientific debate about minimalist shoes is ongoing, but there are companies dedicated to the barefoot revolution that have a loyal following. They tend to be eco-conscious and must have reasonable discretionary incomes because the price for vegan, recycled minimalist shoes can be staggering.
My initial goals were more modest than making like the Tarahumara along suburban streets. I wanted to restore enough function to my feet that I could walk around the house barefoot without pain and enjoy an evening constitutional without discomfort. The first day I put on the silicone toe separators and zero-drop shoes, I hobbled around the house for 30 minutes before tearing them off in tears. Since little bastard would only tolerate Ugg boots as an alternative, I decided to stay the course. By the end of week one, I was able to tolerate the minimalist shoes for an hour a day. After a month, it was half a day. After two months, I was spending all day in the toe separators and zero-drop shoes. This week, I got on the treadmill and was able to run for a few minutes. And boy, did it feel good.
Five months ago, it looked like my jogging days were over and glamour was a girl I used to know. Decades of wearing shoes with a narrow toe box and partying in towering heels had left me lame. I found that I was not alone. A 2009 study of more than 3300 people in the Journal of Arthritis Rheum found 2 per cent of men wear shoes with poor support compared to 60 per cent of women. Even after accounting for age and weight, the shoes women wore were associated with self-reported foot pain. Researchers Alyssa B. Dufour et al suggested theirs was one of the first studies to go beyond the study of high heels to find that women who had a history of wearing fairly supportive “good” shoes like athletic and casual reduced their risk of foot pain. The study did not demonstrate causation, but indicated women should consider the longer-term cost of poor footwear choices.
For a time, it looked like Covid would be the death knell for women’s doomed romance with high heels but, like a stale Sex and the City flick, they keep making a comeback. And truth be told, if it weren’t for little bastard, the temptation of longer, leaner looking legs promised by high heels might prove too much to resist. I am no barefoot revolutionary – bad choices left me with no choice but to join the minimalist corps.
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