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(thanks Jen)

Get Your Kids Into Minimalist Shoes to Ensure Natural Foot Development

By Mark Cuczzella  Entire article here


Posted on 28 September 2011

As a family physician, I firmly believe that children should play in their bare feet or in activity shoes that complement natural foot development and proper biomechanics of movement. Runners, walkers, coaches, and the medical community are all awakening to the benefits of allowing proper natural foot motion to occur in all of our daily activities.  Leaders in the running mechanics, sports medicine, dancing, and yoga/tai chi communities all understand that the smartest design that will ever be developed for human movement and injury free activity is the human foot itself. Running shoe companies are adapting their product lines to create footwear that allows your foot to behave like a foot, but most have only applied this new thinking to adult models. 

...Here’s an important point to keep in mind – a child’s foot is not a miniature version of an adult’s foot. In early development, a child’s foot is widest across the toes. If our population wore shoes that were designed with this functional shape from birth, most adults would also have feet with the widest part across the toes, and the toes would be perfectly aligned with the metatarsals (long bones in midfoot). Most of a child’s developing foot is composed of cartilage, which is gradually replaced by bone. If the cartilage is deformed by badly shaped or rigid shoes, the bones will take on the deformed shape. More than 80 percent of foot problems, bunions and injuries are a result of misshaped and inflexible shoes. It’s vital that kids’ shoes allow enough room for natural growth, until the foot bones mature. This doesn’t happen until ages 18-19 for girls and 20-21 for boys. Simply put; inflexible, poorly shaped shoes are potentially harmful – they restrict the natural movement and development of the foot.