The summer is coming to an end - now we are thinking of preparing children for kindergarten or school. We know that children grew during holidays - their feet also grew so they will need new shoes. The aim of this article is paying attention to one of the most important characteristics of boots - their proper fitting the length of the feet.
It is worth remembering that over 90% of children are born with right feet, but as many as 80% of people suffer from defects, bad condition and pain that are many a time connected with wearing improper boots. It should be also remembered that the child's feet are particularly susceptible to the influences of not physiological footwear. The rule: "It's better to prevent than to cure" has a great importance in the case of children.
Orthopedists warn: "Too short a shoe makes the child contract the toes, which makes such deformations as a hallux, hallux malleus or hallux varus". An interesting fact is that as early as in 1674 the French court doctor Andre in his project "L'ortopedie" paid attention to harmful influence of footwear on the child's feet.
"The child's feet are extremely susceptible to the influence of external factors" - this statement can be heard very often.
What does this statement come from? Among other things, it comes from the fact that as late as at the age of 14-15 the epiphysis of the foot grows together with diaphysis (i.e. long parts of bones with wider ends) of the bones of the shank and the toes! Up to the time of this coalescence, the medial and front parts of the foot are very flexible and easy to deform.
The size of the feet grows along with age. We often do not realize how big the changes happening within a short time are. Children's feet grow about 10 mm long a year, but there are periods of faster and slower growth, different in the case of boys and of girls. There can also be observed significant individual changes. The majority of 13-year-old girls have "an adult person's" size of the feet.
Boys' feet need a bit more time to gain the size like that of girls', namely up to the age between 16 and 18. Next, the feet become full - wider and stouter.
The Central Laboratory of Shoe Manufacturing carried out measurement of the same children's feet who attend one of Kraków's school. The measurement was made at the intervals of half a year. The measurement was started in three age groups - children of 7, 10 and 13 years old (the measurement was semi-longitudinal). Boys' and the youngest girls' length of feet grows about 5 mm - it is half the size of the metric numeration and almost one full size of French numeration!
Proper fitting of footwear to the size of the feet has the most significant role in assuring the conditions of the right growth of children's feet. It must be remembered that:
• while walking, at the moment of bouncing from the big toe to the next step, the feet move forward. If the length of the boot is the same as the length of the feet, there will be the conflict of toes with the tip of the boot while every single step;
• the foot arch (its oblong arch) flattens a bit under the influence of weight which causes the "lengthening" of the feet;
• children's feet grow in a "saltatory" way. There can be observed the periods of quickened growth of the size of the feet. The feet happen to be longer about 10 mm within 6 months;
• considering the reasons presented above, boots should be longer than the feet. There are shared opinions about the difference between the length of the feet and of the boots. The majority of experts posit that this difference should not be less than 7 - 8 mm and not more than 10 - 11 mm.
Here are some practical pieces of advice:
• do not buy boots with a stick since the child's feet have their own width and stoutness
• lace up or button the boots well as, without it, you will not check whether they fit right
• while trying on new boots the child must make a few steps wearing them so that you can see whether they fit the feet well
• you had better buy boots afternoon when the child's feet are a bit tired and the risk of buying too small boots is low
The text was prepared by
Barbara Skrzyńska - anthropologist
of the Central Laboratory
of Shoe Manufacturing in Kraków
