Is looking beautiful or sexy far more important to us than our health?

On a daily basis many women worldwide walk around in heels, be it six or nine inch. Why do women do it? Apart from making a woman appear taller, high heels force the back to arch, pushing the bosom forward and the buttocks rearward, thus accentuating the female form. Simply – they want to appear sexy.

To be perfectly honest, we all know high heels are uncomfortable and make walking trickier. Prolonged use can harm the feet, knees and back. So why do women keep wearing them? Is it worth all the pain?

There are shoe companies that are conscious of women having these problems. This does not mean wearing unsightly ballerinas or monster-like flat boots. Flat shoes or small heels can be eye-catching.

Charles Clinkard established by husband and wife Charles and Eveline Clinkard, has been providing high quality footwear for over 85 years. Their first priority is to cater to the comfort of their buyers. They supply brands such as Ecco, Goex and Gabor. Who says practical can’t be pretty?

In 2002, Charles Clinkard won the title of Best Footwear Retailer of the Year, followed by their 2012 award for Best Multiple Retailer at the Footwear Industry Awards. With all those years of knowledge, the Clinkards have the experience to suggest only the best for you.

The queen of high heels, Sarah Jessica Parker, who helped make high-fashion shoe designers like Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo household names from her show Sex and the City, has finally admitted that years of wearing stilettos continuously for hours have taken a toll on her feet.

After consulting a doctor about a twisted ankle, Sarah learned that all those long hours in gorgeous heels had given her feet issues that were beyond repair. She was advised to swap her stylish shoes for more practical flats. 

In a study published last month in the Journal of Experimental Biology, scientists in the United Kingdom found that women who wore high heels five times a week for two years had calf muscles that were 13% shorter and Achilles tendons that were significantly stiffer and thicker than those of women who wore flat shoes. The distance the high-heel wearers could flex their feet up and down was also drastically reduced.

Wearing high heels puts extra pressure on a woman’s knee joints, increasing her risks for joint degeneration and osteoarthritis. As low heels become high stilettos, those risks grow.

How many of us have struggled walking normally down a street in a pair of pumps because it matches our outfit perfectly? How many of us have chuckled yet winced simultaneously at those women and thought of their aching feet when they get home?

If women would decide collectively what shoes to wear, all might agree to surrender their high heels. Opt for good health, not beautiful and discomfort. They are not called killer heels for nothing.

Pooja Sahny