Foot Pain? Does the shoe fit?

Did you know that many foot pain problems are actually caused by either inappropriate footwear, or incorrectly fitted footwear.

Inappropriate footwear could be wearing unsupportive footwear whilst walking across uneven ground, or wearing a pair of trainers to play football or a wet grass pitch.

Incorrectly fitted footwear can be either the wrong size (too small, too big, too narrow), or simply not fastening your laces up correctly / tightly.  If you have lace up shoes, but are able to slip them on and off without undoing the laces, they are not holding themselves onto your feet.

Everyone at some point has found themselves sat in a shoe shop with six or more pairs of shoes around them, trying to decide which ones fit the best, but why is this?  Surely a standard '9' is a standard '9' across all shoes, especially as a 32" waist is the same in all trousers?  Think again!

If you find your footwear is nipping your toes, rather then fitting like a glove, you might want to check the size of your feet, and the size of your shoes.

It sounds like an obvious statement, but just because you've always been a 32" waist, doesn't mean you haven't put some weight on since you last bought those favourite jeans, which mave have slowly stretched  with wear.

There are so many different manufacturers out there, all originating from different countries, it's difficult to know what is the original size and specification the shoe was made to.  Is it an American company, so all the US sizes should be consistant, or is it a European Company, made to European sizes.  Then there's British companies, where we'd hope everything is made to UK sizes, and labelled to advise of alternative country sizes. Does the American company have the shoes made in the US, China or Vietnam, and are these consistant?

As a general rule, male UK sizes are 1 size smaller than US sizes, whereas females UK sizes are 2 sizes smaller than US sizes.

Got it! Well, you'd hope that would be the case, but here's a selection of labels from shoes from my own home.  Some are mine, and some belong to my good lady Mrs C.

So you can see from the images above, there's a variety  in shoe sizes when you look at the different sizes across the different countries.  Would you believe that two of those shoes are from the same manufacturer, but have different sizes in the European scale!

The actual size of your foot is determined by measuring the distance from the back of your heel to the joint of your big toe.  Why?  Well, this is where the shoe is designed to bend when you are walking , so by making the shoe bend at the correct place, and the rest of the materials move appropriately, your feet should be comfortable for every step.