To help promote our Healthy Feet month and FREE GaitScan assessments, Kim Wilson has collated some interesting facts about our feet.
Have you ever wondered if that saying about the size of feet has any correlation to anything else? Read on if you are game …
Fun facts about your feet
1. The average pair of feet walk between 8,000 and 10,000 steps per day.
(Well they should at least!)
This equates about a quarter of a million steps in a lifetime, which is approximately 4 times around the globe.
2. Public survey reveals feet are the most disliked part of the body.
Poor feet, they do the most work and get the least love!
3. One quarter of all bones in the body are in the feet.
When we’re born, those foot bones are mostly cartilage. They only completely harden around age 21. Each foot also comprises 33 joints, and more than 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
4. Foot problems are very common and according to research, affect nearly 60% of the population.
Again….. Poor feet……. Give them some love. If you have foot pain, you are definitely not alone!
5. The sole of your foot has more sensory nerve endings and sweat glands per square centimetre than any other part of your body.
This makes them the most ticklish part of your body, and also why stubbing your toe hurts so much.
6. Humans have worn shoes for a very long time.
According to research from Washington University in St. Louis, early humans started wearing shoes 40,000 years ago!
Older specimens of humans had thicker, stronger toes, likely from gripping the ground as they walked barefoot. Archaeological record shows a burst of artistic and technological advancements among early humans around the same time, which may have aided in the production of shoes. Imagine how happy they must have been!
The oldest preserved shoe, incidentally, is 5500 years old.
7. There was a foot cheese exhibition in Ireland.
Feet harbor bacteria…….mmmmm.
Warm, sweaty feet make a perfect home for bacteria, which feed on our dead skin cells and produce gases and acids. This is what is responsible for those nasty foot odours. And they’re apparently also good at cultivating cheese!
An exhibition in Dublin in 2013 displayed a variety of cheeses made with bacteria samples obtained from real people’s feet, armpits, and belly buttons. Delicious. (This is disgusting and I don’t know why I wrote this down….. apparently no one actually ate any of the cheeses.)
8. Foot sizes and widths in the US and UK are increasing.
Feet are spreading to support extra weight as our populations pack on the pounds.
According to a 2014 study by the College of Podiatry in the UK, the average foot has increased two sizes since the 1970s. As people have grown taller and heavier, feet respond by growing.
10. Women have 4 times as many foot problems as men.
That painful fact is often attributed to wearing heels. A 2 ½ inch heel can increase the load on the forefoot by 75%.
And amazingly 9 out of 10 women wear shoes that are too small for their feet!
Why stop at 10…… here is a bonus fact for you! Continue if you are game – you have been warned!
An extra fun fact
11. Foot size has no correlation with penis size.
I just had to put this in here…….. if this isn’t a fun fact then what is?
In a study published in 2015, researchers synthesized data from 17 previous studies that included the penis measurements of more than 15,000 men from around the world.
The results: There is little evidence that penis size is linked to height, body mass, or shoe size.
It is easy to book in for a FREE GaitScan!
Either click here to go to the Online Bookings page and choose ‘Free GaitScan’ or call us on 8356 1000 and find a time that suits you!
It only takes 15 minutes, and it might reveal some unknown information that helps solve your foot, ankle, knee or hip pain!
For more information about GaitScan and how it can help you solve your problem, click here to go to our GaitScan page which has heaps of information and an explanatory video of how it works.
