The Dermott News

Wear Shoes That Do Not Cramp Your Toes

Shoes Too Pointed at Toe and Heel Too High and Badly Placed.

(Prepared by the Bureau of Home Economics. United States Department of Agriculture.)

No one can get around the fact that live toes need a certain space of a certain general shape if they are to spread out naturally and comfortably. When jammed into shoes with pointed, needlelike toes, the feet are sure to be cramped, twisted, and finally deformed. Toes are buckled and piled on one another and bones are bent. Other foot troubles develop.

Take this picture of a woman's shoes with a pointed toe. The shoe violates one of the points especially stressed by those who have studied the fitting of shoes, and that is that the inner line of the shoe should be straight.

To be comfortable, safe, durable and attractive, shoes for everyday wear must conform to the natural shape of the feet and protect them. They must also provide a firm foundation for the body. Shoes of correct shape are broad and round at the toe and straight along the inner edge.

A pair of normal feet placed together touch at the heel and also from just in back of the big joints of the big toes to the ends of these toes. The inner edges of a pair of properly made shoes do likewise. The more these edges diverge or curve toward the outside of the shoe the more unnatural the shoe's shape and the greater the wearer's discomfort. If such shoes are persistently worn enlarged joints and bunions are bound to result.

Compare the X-ray of the foot in badly shaped shoes with the position of the bones in the correctly shaped man's shoes designed for army use. There is no room for choice as to which shoe is more desirable.