Name: Stylish but harmful? What to know before buying shoes
Uploaded: 2025-11-10T09:26:56.379Z
Duration: 3 min 54 s
Description: Shoes might look good but some can cause long-term damage—not just to your feet, but to knees, hips, and back. Find out which shoes support your health.

Shoes might look good but some can cause long-term damage—not just to your feet, but to knees, hips, and back. Find out which shoes support your health.

Berlin

A report from DW News examines the impact of various types of shoes on foot health, noting that fashionable and tight-fitting footwear can contribute to issues such as heel spurs, bunions, and tendon irritation. Experts interviewed in the segment explain that shoes play a crucial role not only in foot health but also in the overall alignment of the skeletal system.

The report also discusses barefoot shoes, which are designed to allow natural movement and strengthen foot muscles, but cautions that they may not be suitable for everyone, especially those with poor walking technique. The experts recommend that, while occasional use of stiff or narrow shoes is not harmful, everyday footwear should provide enough space and flexibility to support healthy foot function.

Stylish but harmful? What to know before buying shoes

Fancy shoes, sporty shoes, shoes for summer, shoes for winter, the right pair for every occasion. They're often made to look good, but what do our feet think of them? What role does footwear play in foot health? Shoes play a major role in the health of our feet and ultimately the entire skeleton. It's our connection to the ground if you want to see it holistically. People's feet come in all different shapes and sizes, and if someone's foot deviates from the standard, that doesn't necessarily make it better or worse. But there are some shoes that have a positive effect on foot movement and others that don't. And that's when problems can start. Heel spurs, bunions, or like in this case, tendon irritation. We walk ourselves into trouble by wearing high heels or tight shoes. We put stress on our feet in the wrong way or not enough. And then we try to fix our posture with things like toe separators without actually changing the root cause, like the tight shoes. So there's a lot you can get wrong. But what exactly are healthy shoes? This shop claims to sell just that. They're known as barefoot shoes and they're said to have a wide range of benefits. You feel so much more with these soles. You get gentle acupressure from below, kind of like a foot reflexology massage. It stimulates the feet and the feet have a lot of nerve endings. Also, in regular shoes, the muscles in our feet forget how to work. Barefoot shoes are said to train those muscles. When you go to the gym, you train your biceps, your leg muscles, but your feet, they don't get trained at all. But are barefoot shoes really healthy for everyone? We asked the expert. You can see that the shoe is very flat and very flexible. That means the foot has to work to adapt. And if you're walking and carrying a lot of weight and you have poor walking technique, like always landing on your heel, that could theoretically lead to issues with the plantar fascia, heel spurs or with the Achilles tendon. So they're not ideal for everyone right away, but switching to them is definitely worth considering. And what about the other shoes here? Are they really unhealthy? Office shoes are very stiff. Some manufacturers use plastic soles that are a bit more flexible. But as we can see here, the toe box is very narrow. It tapers. That's really not ideal. We need the big toe. It's important. It helps us grip the ground when we roll through a step. That gripping motion, these shoes don't allow for it at all. Even these sneakers and chucks are apparently too narrow. The boots might be good for hiking, but not everyday wear. The sandals are also stiff, but at least they offer plenty of room to move. We're told that's another key feature of a healthy shoe. Would you want to wear a cast on your wrist all day? I wouldn't. So if we don't allow our foot muscles to move freely, they waste away. Our posture suffers. And that can lead to further problems, affecting the ankle, knee, hip and even the back. Wearing stiff, narrow shoes every now and then isn't a big deal. But in everyday life, our feet need space to really thrive.

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