One of life's great mysteries....Some folks will do what they want anyway....

The origins of the species, gravity and women...Just a few of life mysteries. Reading this article (1) made us sad in many ways. It's like smoking. You know it's bad for you but you keep doing it. Why? The mystery remains to us.

Vanity seems to often trump biomechanics, as we see in pencil skirts (see our post here), droopy pants (see here)  and high heels (here).

Yet, here is yet another study about women, heels and bunion surgery. 

"Almost two thirds (31) of the 50 patients who said they wanted to go back to wearing heels after surgery did so, and 24 of these women said their postoperative use equaled or exceeded the frequency of their preoperative wear. There were no differences between pre- and postoperative heel heights.

In the study, women older than 65 years were more likely than younger women to report high-heel use prior to hallux valgus surgery.

However, 58.5% of study participants reported difficulty with heel wear, and 13.9% said they had significant restriction, and couldn’t wear anything without pain but custom orthopedic shoes or slippers. Most women (86%) were able to return to comfortable shoes after surgery with minimal or no discomfort; 27.7% said their footwear choice was unrestricted, meaning they could wear both comfortable shoes and heels with minimal discomfort. The 23 women older than 65 years were twice as likely to report significant restriction as those in the younger cohort; compared by operative type, patients who had the most extensive procedures had the highest rates of restriction. The findings were published in June by the World Journal of Methodology. (2)"

Bunions are believed to be caused by an inability to anchor the 1st ray and the untoward action of the adductor hallucis, acting from the transverse and oblique insertions more proximally on the foot, make the hallux head west. This is under the purview of the peroneus longus, extensor hallucis brevis as well as the short flexors of the lesser toes (see here).

The components of supination are plantar flexion, inversion and adduction. Why would you continue to wear a shoe with a narrow toe box that forces the big toe medially and that puts you in plantar flexion? We won't even begin to talk about the loss of ankle rocker.....

We guess folks will continue to do what they will do....

1. Robinson C, Bhosale A, Pillai A. Footwear modification following hallux valgus surgery: The all-or-none phenomenon. World J Methodol 2016;6(2):171-180.

2. http://lerfoothealth.com/archives/2016/most-women-who-want-to-wear-heels-after-bunion-surgery-do-so/