[Click here for the home page of Shoebusters.com]
Kids and shoes
Our children are the most precious natural resource in this world. They represent the future of humanity. If shoes have had such a powerful influence on the disease and mental state of adults, then how are the children coping?
SIDS
Sudden-infant-death-syndrome (SIDS) occurs much more often in the winter, when it is tempting for shod adults to keep tight socks on the feet of a newborn, but fortunately not on their hands. Though like for the fingers, spreading and flexing and free motion of the toes is essential to proper muscular development before the infant begins to use their feet. Nobody would expect an infant to do useful things with their hands after a few months in tight socks, but everyone expects the infant to walk naturally after the feet have been subjected to such debilitating binding. The occurrence of SIDS declines considerably in ages beyond six months, as many infants begin to walk into adulthood and subsequently regard socks to be ridiculously harmless.
Immunity to disease
Shoes and socks compromise the immune system of a young infant, especially a newborn baby, resulting in frequent colds, ear, nose and throat infections, abdominal disorders, and even allergies to nutrition and food. Swollen tonsils and ear infections have become especially common now amongst young children in the United States. Rather than removing their deforming shoes, we remove a child's valuable defenders of disease, sticking tubes in their ears, while drugging them with antibiotics and general anesthetics. Getting the kids off to a "healthy" start in our disease care system seems to be the preferred prescription.
Neuromuscular control
Shoes completely interfere with proper neuromuscular control of the entire body, from head to toe, and that includes the bladder and bowels. Walking around in shoes or socks results in major disturbances when doing both "Number One" and "Number Two", and even affects many adults—particularly the elderly, who have endured a long lifetime of footwear. Widely available now for adults and children alike, diapers may appear to provide a quick fix to a sticky situation, but they are costly and ignore the underlying cause.
Growing pains
The cause of so-called "growing" pains remains completely unknown, but seems to primarily affect the muscles, especially the thighs and calves, of many children in the United States. These unnatural pains frequently occur later in the day, as the cumulative effect of shoes takes its toll on the active body of a growing child.
Childhood depression
At one time, most degenerate childhood conditions were considered unusual or abnormal by physicians or parents because they did not commonly exist in earlier generations. But those old-timers who saw these occurring as new plagues have long since passed on. Furthermore, the diseases have so increased in prevalence, affecting many more children and the resulting generations of adults, that most regard them as "normal" now in the United States. Although they may not be normal in Nature, conditions such as tonsillitis, earaches, vision disorders, acne, growing pains, potty-training problems, or frequent colds are all "normal" in modern society. Will childhood depression also become "normal" someday in society?
Cancer
It makes no sense for a young, healthy child to get cancer out of nowhere, indicating that there is indeed something in the child's environment that is triggering the condition. Yet according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, "In most cases, the cause of childhood leukemia is not evident. Scientists continue to explore possible relationships with lifestyle or environmental factors, but no firm conclusions have been reached. Unfortunately, there is no known way to prevent this disease."
Actually, something slam-dunked our children in the early 1980's, causing a sudden jump in the rates of leukemia and brain cancers, and carrying out a full-court press on teenagers and young adults ever since. Some scientists kept their heads up and noticed a sharp bounce in the cancer rates of children, especially boys, in 1984 and 1985. As every kid who ever wanted to be like Mike knows, a particular shoe became popular in America at precisely the same time.
Fatigue and hormonal imbalances
Fortunately, not all kids get cancer, but many experience emotional changes, mood swings, fatigue, and hormonal imbalances. Teenage America is one of the largest users of acne medicine, but they are also one of the heaviest users of modern footgear on the planet. The shock in going from middle school to high school and childhood into puberty may be sufficient to put many shoe-laden teenagers over the top. It is precisely during this time that many adult disorders, such as weight gain and obesity, traditionally find their genesis.
Puberty
The growth spurts in a child's foot are not regular or precisely predictable, and the single month, week, day, or even hour that a foot tries to grow fast inside of a restrictive shoe, could be a stressful event that triggers premature puberty. (27) In recent years, children as young as five years old have been experiencing early puberty—incomprehensible in the past. Yet as usual, the spotlight of attention focuses on the type of food they eat, completely oblivious to the type of shoes they wear.
Indeed, the sole materials and styles used in children's shoe manufacturing during the last decades have changed significantly, from thinner, more-flexible more-breathable leathers to thicker, heavier plastics and other unwieldy manmade synthetics. These unnatural shoes are mass-produced in limited widths and lengths, and are certainly not made to custom sizes, greatly increasing the odds of a debilitating fit. Moreover, our feet have been getting steadily bigger during the last century, but the shoe sizes have remained the same size as hundreds of years ago. With such intensive stress, the body is physically forced to change at a younger age, resulting in an earlier puberty regardless of food or diet.
Girls have been experiencing early menstruation, missed periods, and premenstrual syndrome (PMS), conditions that never even effect those growing up shoeless from birth. Prior to the modern mass-produced shoe of the mid 1800's, few girls could afford the fashionable footwear of the nobility; most girls and boys merely went barefoot for a significant portion of the year, especially during the summer months. But during the late twentieth century, it became increasingly easy for girls—barely of kindergarten age—to find and purchase high-heeled, pointed-toe shoes, and wear them year-round even during the hot months of the summer. Their little growing body simply responds to sexier shoes by initiating an earlier puberty.
Behavioral phenomena
If adults have suffered uncountably many neuroses, mental and behavioral disorders in footwear, then how else can we possibly expect the children to act while growing up in shoes? Scientists and doctors have spent most of the last century impulsively applying all sorts of drugs and diets in attempts to calm sufferers of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Some researchers, however, have actually been attentive to a surge in ADHD since the 1970's, confirmed by experienced schoolteachers of those decades. The surging popularity of the severely deforming modern sneaker, coupled with stagnant shoe sizes and manmade material changes, provided fertile ground for a wide variety of behavioral phenomena, now being observed in adults of that era.
Scoliosis
The habitual use of shoes has also led to unnecessary scoliosis (spinal distortion) in teenagers, especially females, who endure abominable surgery and ghastly corrective techniques. The two feet of a person are not the same size or shape, nor do they spread equally upon standing or walking. (31) Their two shoes, however, are made to be identical on a form called a last that is sometimes measured to a precision of 1/64 of an inch—an exactness that is never measured at the shoe store. The body has no choice in the matter and must adapt to fit the same-sized shoes, necessarily producing scoliosis in the flexible spine.
Learning deficiencies and disabilities
Have differently shaped feet in same-sized shoes produced some less apparent results? It has been noted that some individuals are left-brain oriented and some are right-brain oriented, leading to differences in ability, say, some being more analytic and others more intuitive. Perhaps fitting the larger foot into a same-sized pair suppresses one quality over the other, thus leading to the dichotomy. Try spreading the toes of each of foot or measuring the circumference of each calf muscle for comparison. Did you tend to get better grades in math class, but poorer grades in literature or vice versa?
The brain requires an extraordinary amount of blood flow for proper functioning, as many stroke patients suddenly realize one day, because the main artery to the head is no larger than the diameter of a pencil. Even slight crimping, stretching or kinking of that important carotid artery—especially during the developmental years—significantly interferes with a supply of nutrients, potentially resulting in a wide variety of mental and physical phenomena. Some stroke patients actually retain all physical abilities, for example, but may lose the ability to read time from the clock, add numbers, or remember past experiences and facts. A sudden blockage of blood flow to the brain certainly has an immediate and known consequence, but does a small circulatory disturbance have a more subtle long-term effect in children and even adults?
According to recent television advertisements, disruption in blood flow to a certain male body part leads to a noticeable drop in its performance. Could disruptions in blood flow to the brain—an organ like any other—cause memory problems, learning disorders, comprehension deficiencies, and drops in grades, perhaps explaining the prevalence of the other television advertisements aimed at improving a child's success in school?
Consider that remedial classes with fancy names at all levels of education—from kindergarten to graduate school—have mysteriously experienced explosive growth in the United States, straining budgets and resources, and displacing hands-on offerings in art, literature, music, languages, architecture, agriculture, biology, climatology, astronomy, science, mathematics, fabrication, engineering, and numerous other important fields.
The dropout rate increased over the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's in the United States, alarmingly affecting even younger children. Is this trend reminiscent of another, more visible one? The trend in obesity in the United States seemed to mimic its trend in school dropouts and remedial courses.
What has caused widespread learning deficiencies and disabilities amongst our youth? Is it too many school administrators? Are class sizes too big? Are teacher salaries too low? Is it a mysterious toxin in the school lunches?
Indeed, letting kids go barefoot would actually unleash an unfathomable surge in human creativity and endeavor, unseen in the world since the Industrial Revolution of the 1850's spawned the modern shoe.
original publication on November 27, 2003
feetback@shoebusters.com