It seems that wearing high heels can be damaging in quite a lot of ways. Most of them, of course, involve the foot, such as an increased level of painful skin lesions.
I looked up the word ‘lesion’, as I wasn’t sure what it meant.
It seems that a tissue (like the skin on your foot) can suffer damage through injury or disease, such as a wound, ulcer, abscess or tumour.
If it does, this is called a lesion.
In addition to lesions, wearing high heels can result in lower limb problems and an increased incidence of injuries from falls.
As if this is not bad enough, the litany of disaster continues: foot pain and bunions can also result from wearing high heels.
The obvious question is ‘why on earth would anyone wear high heels?’
Now, I’m a bloke, so I don’t wear high heels, but I know ladies who do, or do occasionally, wear them.
It seems that it can improve the look of a leg.
It also seems that it improves your chances of keeping your job, in certain circumstances.
In case you’ve missed it, the issue has been in the news recently.
It appears that a little while ago, in December, 2015, Nicola Thorpe was told by her employer, Portico, a company who provides receptionist services for PWC, one of the ‘big four’ accountancy companies, to wear two to four inch heels to work.
She refused and was sent home without pay.
To cut a long story short, she started a petition, a load of people signed it, and it has been recently debated in Britain’s House of Commons.
I admit that I didn’t know that there was a minister for women and equalities, but it appears that Caroline Dinenage, is that person.
She has just said, in parliament, that she’s going to put her best foot forwards to ensure that women are not held back in the workplace because of ‘outdated attitudes, practices and discriminatory dress codes’.
She’s not wrong there!
This does, of course, expose the whole ‘dress code’ issue, which is not, in my view, such a bad thing, when it is sensibly and sensitively applied.
Most of us accept that we need to wear a sort of ‘uniform’ while at work, from safety shoes on a building site to a dark suit in certain business contexts.
Women need to put their collective feet down.
Literally.
Having said that, feet do need support, so totally flat, soft-soled shoes can be as damaging as high heels, it seems.
From fallen arches, which are tremendously painful and can make walking very difficult and exercise almost impossible, to plantar fasciitis.
Sounds like something in the garden, but it’s when you get inflamed tissues along the bottom of your foot.
This might need medication or even surgery.
Flats without arch support may also lead to lower back and ankle pain because of the gait that they encourage.
The Goldilocks solution is, as ever, the right one, podiatrists say.
Not too high, not too flat, but a bit like Nicola Thorpe’s boss at Portico – a little heel!
l Mike Gaunt is a former headmaster at St Christopher’s School, Bahrain
- mikegaunt@gmail.com