What I find most shocking is that every single one of those ailments certainly happened because shoes caused those pathologies in the feet.
Dr. Steve Bloor, barefooter and podiatrist in the UK, has said on a number of occasions that he thinks a significant amount of foot pathology is caused or exacerbated by shoes.
Yet podiatrists often recommend that people never go barefoot. They claim that feet need support, bare feet will acquire athlete's foot or nail fungus, and unprotected feet are simply at too great a risk of injury.
I don't have a problem with podiatrists and their profession. I think they serve an important purpose, but how about we, as a society, give our own bare feet a chance to be strong and flexible on their own. If injury occurs, then podiatrists can help us get back on our own two (bare) feet.
Dr. Bloor, told me in an interview a few years ago that, "I now believe the foot is well designed for supporting itself and the rest of the body if it is given a chance to do so without being hindered by footwear."
The answer to foot problems like bunions, neuromas, hammer toes, and the like is not fixing them, then putting those feet back into shoes. As the Barefoot Alliance says, "Barefoot is human." Constant shoe use is not a characteristic of how we are made to function.
Shoes cause problems, and problems give work to podiatrists. Of course they recommend that people never go barefoot. They want to have clients.
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