Stiletto heels are a fashion item that almost every woman adore and want to wear, even if it hurts their feet. It enhances their height and is also very fashionable. But is it really bad for women's feet?
Stiletto heels.
A stiletto heel, also known as a spike heel, is a long, thin heel found on some boots and shoes, usually for women. It is named after the stiletto dagger.
Stiletto heels may vary in length from 2.5cm to 25cm or more if a platform sole is used, ans are sometimes defined as having a diameter at the ground of less than 1cm.
Stiletto-style heels 5cm or shorter are called kitten heels. Not all high slim heels merit the description stiletto.
The extremely slender original Italian-style stiletto heels of the late 1950s and very early 1960s were no more than 5mm in diameter for much of their length, although the heel sometimes flared out a little at the top-piece (tip). After their demise in the mid-late 1960s, such slender heels were difficult to find until recently due to changes in the way heels were mass-produced.
A real stiletto heel has a stem of solid steel or alloy. The more usual method of mass-producing high shoe heels, i.e. moulded plastic with internal metal tube for reinforcement, does not achieve the true stiletto shape.
High heel shoes were worn by men and women courtiers. The design of stiletto heels originally came from the late Kristen S. Wagner but were not popular until the late 1950s.
As time went on, stiletto heels became known more for their erotic nature than for their ability to make height. Stiletto heels are a common fetish item. As a fashion item, their popularity was changing over time. After an initial wave of popularity in the 1950s, they reached their most refined shape in the earl y 1960s, when the toes of the shoes which bore them became slender and elongated as the stiletto heels themselves. As a result of the overall sharpness of outline, it was customary for women to refer to the whole shoe as a "stiletto", not just the heel, via synecdoche (pars pro toto).
Although they officially faded from the scene after the Beatle era began, their popularity continued at street level, and women stubbornly refused to give them up even after they could no longer readily find them in the mainstream shops. A version of the stiletto heel was reintroduced as soon as 1974 by Manolo Blahnik, who dubbed his "new" heel the Needle.
Why are stiletto heels bad for women's feet?
Stevenson's formula was primarily concerned with balance, but the awkward angles and high pressures associated with heels has been cause for concern in some circles.
For years now, orthopaedists, podiatrists and other medical sorts have been warning woman about the health risks of routinely donning high heels: bunionb, stress fractures, joint pain in the ball of the foot(because weight is shifted to the ball of your foot, rather than being distributed over the entire foot), corns and calluses, hammertoes, ingrown toenails, toenail fungus and something called "pump bumps"(enlargement of the bony area on the back of the heel).
High heels have been linked to injured leg muscles, lower back pain, and osteoarthritis in the knee, too, because when you wear heels, the foot slides forward, redistributes your weight and created those unnatural pressure points. You can pretty much kiss healthy spinal alignment goodbye.
High heels also mean your heel bones don't regularly come into contact with the ground, so the Achilles tendon can't stretch out properly while walking, and thus becomes shortened and, or tightened. Then there's a little thing called Morton's neuroma, a growth of nerve tissue in the foot--usually between the third and fourth toes-- that arises when you wear too-tight shoes, causing sharp burning pan in the ball of your foot and a stinging numbness in your toes.
The list goes on and on. In fact, thanks to high heels, the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society estimates that women account for 90% of surgeries performed each year for common foot ailments. That's about $3.5 billion annually in the US alone, according to a May 2007 article in the Washington Post.
source for picture: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsQkrKuvQKWpYqq1iCz1blfi5ZyP7LAGEh4O5GkkcBDJBITU8FKGMixBetnXLOLvpDr32U8SzNxJHXyI6sLEzAG3W5-yg1K4gbHceb21F_UoerWEGoXDebyqEc8A2O9hbG8Mcrp6Blkc/s400/Stilettos2%5B1%5D.jpg
source for info: http://www.blogher.com/what-heel-why-i-hate-stilettos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiletto_heel
