By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Have you ever experienced working all day with your shoes and at the end of the day, the first thing you want do when you reach home is to remove your shoes? And, AAHHH! What relief! I’ve seen children, too, who would remove their shoes and socks once they reach the doorsteps. Aside, of course, from the fact that our floors (and cleaners) would be very happy when we leave our footwear outside the door, our feet are also happy to be free.
Our two feet are hi tech (meaning highly complex) structures of our body. Each foot is made up of more than 26 bones, 100 tendons, ligaments and muscles and 33 joints and supplied with blood vessels and nerves. Our feet contain about 200,000 nerve endings, making it one of the most sensitive parts of our body just like our hands and head so that a bruise in the toe is much more painful (and much more bloody) than a bruise in the thigh. Once I dropped a boulder (rather, a big stone) right on my little toe and I almost fainted because of the pain. These nerves are the built-in wiring system that connects our feet to the spinal cord and the brain. This means that the nerves on our feet come from our spine so remember this when you have leg or foot pain.
BTW, have you ever wondered why we have feet? We have feet primarily to provide balance, for mobility like walking, running, climbing, swimming and to bear our weight. So before you engorge on food and sweet drinks, think of the effect of excess weight on your poor feet.
Look at the soles of your feet and you will see that they are arched in the middle. This stabilizes at around age 6-7 years. These make walking easier and less taxing to the body.
How, then, do we keep our feet vibrant and happy?
First, we start at the foundation. Look at the feet of a baby and that of an adult. They are not the same. Our feet, just like the rest of our body start development in the womb- during conception and pregnancy (but of course, genes from both mother and father also play important roles so mother and father have to be healthy before pregnancy). Again, just like the rest of our body, our feet need the proper building blocks to develop properly. From whence do these building blocks come from? From food and drink and air and sunshine. So pregnant mothers, be careful with what you eat and drink. Then we have to continue eating right all throughout our lifetime to avoid depositing sugar and meat/egg/milk crystals in those joints.
Next, let us look at foot development after birth. We are all born barefoot and our forefathers have stayed naturally barefoot all throughout their lifetime, with legs and feet so strong that carried them up and down mountains until they passed away. At present, even babies who don’t walk have shoes! Caregivers, be careful. Babies and toddlers’ feet are soft and pliable as the bones are not completely formed and they can be more easily deformed by abnormal pressure, however subtly, by too tight socks or shoes or ill-fitted shoes.
Babies don’t need shoes. Why do we use shoes, by the way? For fashion? For added height? Letting young children go barefoot will help their feet grow normally and encourage them to develop a grasping action which is important for balance. Going barefoot or minimal footwear that allow barefoot movement also strengthens the muscles of the feet and legs for balance. Balance is important to prevent falls or tripping thus preventing injury. Perhaps now you can understand why children and the elderly in indigenous Igorot villages don’t fall down those steep mountainsides. Normal feet development impacts on the functions of the feet at present and in the future. Going barefoot will also allow the feet to breathe and thus prevent infection (and its attendant odor).
Going barefoot also allows the child to develop a natural gait or walking pattern and good posture. Feet experts say that a natural walk has a mid-foot strike rather than a heel strike. Watch a baby learning to walk and see this pattern. Heel strike is seen in people accustomed to cushioned shoes and this would have repercussions on the joints above the foot particularly the knees and hips. I could imagine how agonizing painful knees could be. Now, do we need to say more about the folly of letting young children wear high-heeled shoes? Let us leave those high heels to short adults like me (wink).
Walking barefoot on the ground allows our body to have direct contact with the earth- called “grounding” or “earthing”. The earth has a limitless supply of healthy energies that our barefeet absorb to energize and heal our body. Eastern medical science has discovered that in the soles of our feet (like in our palms) are acu points which correspond to all internal organs of our body and these points are naturally massaged by going barefoot. Massaging these areas tonify, balance and heal our body. Our indigenous culture further enhances this “barefoot medicine” with the practice of “dagdagay” or “kolkolis”.
Fortunate is the farmer who goes barefoot in the “payeo” and who eats natural foods. How about office workers and city people? Don’t worry, it is not an all or none thing. If dress code does not allow barefeet in office, we can still go barefoot inside the house (if your floor is wood) and in the park, in the garden. Just be alert for the dog and chicken poo. And remember to eat right. Happy feet make a happy person.**
“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who proclaim good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’.” Isaiah 52:7
