Going Barefoot

I am often confronted with the "barefoot is better" people, and, frankly, they drive me nuts. First, let me preface this with the fact that I grew up barefoot. I grew up in a mostly temperate climate, on the swim team, and in a neighborhood with lush lawns & smooth asphalt streets. I LIKE being barefoot, and I often do not wear shoes unless I'm going outside. As a kid, I didn't even wear shoes outside either, and as an adult, I won't wear shoes if I'm running out to the car or the mailbox. When I did deign to wear shoes to school as a kid, they were shoes with the least amount of restriction (in fact, I spent the better part of high school actually wearing moccasins to school). But I have a serious problem with the "barefoot is better" people.

The basic position is that people evolved to be barefoot, not wear shoes, so wearing shoes is bad for us - all of us (usual disclaimer here about if you don't do this, then I'm not talking about you). There are also some woo reasons, but I'll save that for another time. There are two main problems with this position. 1) The Naturalistic Fallacy. This assumes that anything natural is automatically "better". 2) The assumption or premise that people evolved until a few thousand years ago and then stopped, making all modern technology & achievements "unnatural".

First of all, not everything that is natural is better. Nature does not make "perfect", it makes "good enough". And there are plenty of things wrong with nature. I won't get into them all here, but Skeptoid covers some relevant points. Sometimes, many times even, humans have improved on nature, making life easier, more productive, and qualitatively better than before. Some modern shoes fall under this category. Obviously, some do not.

Second, though, is the idea that we evolved to a certain point, responding to natural selection and environmental pressure, but do not continue to evolve in response to man-made environmental pressure (which they then assume that evolving to accommodate those "unnatural" environmental pressures is a bad thing). Early forms of shoes were mostly made of organic materials, like animal hides & plant materials. These do not lend themselves to preservation over the millenia. But we have actually made a pretty good estimation on when humans started wearing shoes partly because that's when the human pinky toe started shrinking (if I can find the link to this study, I'll post it).

Note, these were not the tight, foot-cramping, heel-elevating shoes of the Rennaissance England (or modern-day Manhattan - I'm looking at you, Sex And The City!), nor the foot-binding techniques of China. These were the moccasin-type shoes that the pro-barefoot websites claim are the closest thing to being barefoot (historically) & therefore acceptable to wear. Nevertheless, pinky toes began to shrink. And they did not just shrink because they were squeezed in every generation, the trait was passed on through natural selection & environmental pressures to children so that successive generations were *born with* smaller pinky toes. Naturally, this variation is not a constant - those societies that continued to shun footwear for generations later tend to have flatter feet with longer pinky toes.
 
The human body isn't designed as much for "finish product = X", but rather with a lot of coding that starts with "If X, then Y".  This means that the genes mostly express a lot of potential for certain traits, and what we end up with is actually a matter of how other things affect the finished product, and not nearly as much definitive end results as we like to think.  That's ad hoc ergo propter hoc - we ended up this way, therefore it must have been because we're supposed to be this way.  Think of it this way:  rather than a map with landmarks & an itinerary based on knowing where gas stations & restaurants are on the way to a fixed location, life is more like someone setting out on a stroll with no real destination in mind, deciding to eat when there is hunger, choosing the meal based on the available options when you get there, and ending the stroll based on what you find along the way, not on a set time limit.  Life seems to be very "P" that way, and we keep wanting to make it more "J" (Meyers-Briggs joke).

But the smaller toe & higher arch managed to be selected *for* and some people, and even some ethnicities, are much less suited to running around barefoot on the savannah than others.

I happen to have an extremely high arch and a very small, almost useless, pinky toe. I also have weak ankles, bad knees, back problems, poor circulation, and a potassium deficiency that causes my toes to cramp up if I point them or try to grip things with them.  These things have always been so.

Remember, I went barefoot for most of my life. I used to hike barefoot & run in the street on asphalt barefoot. I have *always* had weak ankles and a bad back, and my knees & circulation got worse over time.  The foot cramping fluctuates depending on if I've had enough potassium lately.

Modern shoes save me considerable pain and suffering from my "natural" bare feet. Just the other week, in fact, I found myself standing in the kitchen (which has a tile floor), barefoot, cooking. I was doing a LOT of cooking, and ended up standing for several hours. After a couple of those hours had passed, my back was aching & my knees were starting to lock up on me and I felt the beginnings of a migrane starting behind my eyes. So I went into my room, put on my ultra-cushy Crocs sandals, and instantly my back & knee pain eased. I was able to stand for several *more* hours with less pain even than when I started the day, and I needed no painkillers.

It is true that shoes change a person's gait. When I run barefoot, I run on my toes. When I run in shoes, I run on my heels. And studies back up my anecdotal data point - most people do this. But, those same pro-barefoot websites say that it's bad to always be on the toes. That's one of the main complaints with today's shoes, particularly women's shoes. And, for me, it puts a lot more pressure on my knees than running on my heel (and I don't run enough to develop shin splints). So, while it's true that shoes affect certain things, I'm not convinced that those affectations are necessarily bad things. When we have poor eyesight, we wear glasses. When we have poor hearing, we get hearing aides. When our teeth come in crooked, we get braces. I have yet to be convinced that modern shoes, those that place a priority on comfort and health, are a net negative to the human body in general.

I can easily see why women's fashion heels are considered a detriment. They certainly hurt my feet, my back, my knees & ankles, and give me a headache. But I've also had dance heels that catered to foot care that I could wear for hours, dancing on hardwood floors, and not feel any worse than dancing barefoot or in sneakers (and the proper dance shoes actually cause me *less* discomfort than dancing barefoot), even with my bad knees, ankles, and back.

But that does not hold true for all shoe styles or for all people. Going barefoot my whole adolescence did not prevent me from having weak ankles. They did not magically strengthen on their own. High-top shoes with ankle support relieve the pain of my naturally weak ankles, and my unnaturally weak right one that was broken when I was 13. I have poor circulation, again, something I've always had. Going barefoot does not improve my circulation. Wearing socks and close-toed shoes keep my feet warmer than going barefoot. When my back is hurting, wearing more supportive shoes with the proper amount (for me) of cushion & firmness in the right (for me) places improves my back pain. Not to mention the counless times I've been saved from amputation or pulverizing when something heavy fell on my toes while I was wearing steel-toe boots. Fungus has never been a problem because I properly air out my shoes at night and change my socks regularly.

All in all, going barefoot has either caused, or not prevented, significant health problems that well-crafted footwear has actively corrected. And don't even get me started on my mother, who has bone spurs, and can't even walk across the living room in bare feet, and whose special orthopedic shoes enable her to function in society, and in her own house. She did not get bone spurs from Mahnolos, she often walked barefoot and when she did wear shoes, they were low-heeled and sensible, preferring quality tennis shoes to dress shoes or sandals.

I have no doubt that some people find going barefoot improves their quality of life in some way. As I stated at the very beginning of this piece, I, too, enjoy being barefoot.  I certainly don't lounge around on the couch with my feet over the arm while wearing shoes.  But it is not the panacea of all ills that some claim, and it is not the "best" method just because it's "natural". What is "best" depends on each individual person (the human species has an wonderful amount of variation), and modern technology has a steady track record for consistently (over time) improving on "nature". I think I might like the ability to take off my legs and attach those springy metal ones to go running in, for instance. That seems like a huge improvement to me, and the Powers That Be in running seem to agree, since amputee runners are banned from competition with able-bodied runners because they have an "unfair advantage" - you know, those people who do not have feet to bare, who don't have nerve endings feeling the soil, and who have no soles from which their qi can flow into the earth and back again, renewed, or something.

For me, being barefoot when I am not standing or walking much, and when there is something soft and cushy underfoot to absorb the shock instead of my knees and back absorbing it, is great. But if I am at work, where big heavy things fall regularly & I'm standing a lot of the time, if I am on hard surfaces, if I am dancing, or if I am standing or walking for more than a few minutes at a time, the proper shoes for the activity significantly increase my own quality of life and improve upon the imperfect body that nature saw fit to bestow upon me.

If individuals claim that they feel better doing certain activities barefoot, or being barefoot more often, then I'm happy for them. But PLEASE stop telling me that going barefoot is the best method for all people because it's "natural", or that I'll feel better without shoes. No, it's not the best method for everyone, "natural" is not always better, and I think I'm a better judge of what will make me feel better than some stranger or aquaintance on the internet or at work, having been experimenting with my body for more than 3 decades now. If you don't have a medical degree, and haven't actually examined me personally, do not tell me that I am wrong when I make a statement about what's best for me. You cannot make any statements about the entire human race without being intellectually dishonest, and unless you have robust, peer-reviewed studies (plural) to back up your point, don't even tell me that something is good for "most people". You can tell me that something worked *for you* and if it doesn't contradict known science, then I'll take your word for it. Please afford me the same courtesy.

Related rants: The Five Finger Shoes are often held up by people who try to convince me that *these* shoes are the most like going barefoot and therefore "better" because it reverts to "natural" while still protecting your feet from glass on the sidewalk, or something.  BS, these things are fucking uncomfortable to me and have all the same problems with going barefoot that being barefoot does.  Again, I get that *you* might find them comfortable, but don't make the mistake that natural is better or that everyone will benefit from them.  It's not and they won't.