Heels on shoes

[desertrat]

Are heels on shoes actually benficial to your body or are they purely aesthetic?

[KARL]

If I am not mistaken, heels were originally introduced to provide a replaceable part on a shoe otherwise made as effectively a single piece: once you wore through the parent material you could not repair it without sewing a patch on it. With a heel you could from then on nail another piece on once the uneven (worn) part had been shaved down - very similar in nature to shoeing a horse (a worn shoe is removed and replaced with a new one nailed onto the hoof). Once heels were introduced, they no doubt became the means for one-upmanship exercises and designer/fashion posing - all a bit like now mobile phones are actually promoted on strength of the variety of colours and ring tones (I ask you !). Hence, people started to make them (the heels) higher, more shaped, wider or whatever.

[Kit]

Low heels serve a shock-absorbing purpose as the foot hits the ground. In most cases, high heels are actually detrimental to the body. When the ankle is pushed downwards it throws the body's centre of gravity forwards, and to prevent falling forwards, the knees either bend too far or extend backwards too far, and the back extends backwards too far. This is why a lot of people complain of backache after wearing heels. Also the weight is thrown forwards onto the balls of the feet, it alters the walking pattern and all in all it's not a good thing to do to yourself. The exception to this is if you have tight achilles tendons - moderate heels may take some of the slack off the tendons and actually make walking more comfortable.