This study shows how healthy barefoot walking can be

Foot development and physical performance: Barefoot walking is so healthy

In Western countries, few people see barefoot. Even small children usually need to wear shoes even in warm temperatures. There are enough reasons for frequent barefoot running, as now also a comparative study of sports physicians in Germany and South Africa showed.

Walking barefoot strengthens muscles and tissues

Health experts repeatedly point out how healthy barefoot running is. It not only trains the resistance of the feet, but also strengthens muscles and tissues. According to experts also some foot deformity and later foot pain could be prevented by barefoot walking. In addition, it provides less back problems and also against sweaty feet is recommended to run around more often with bare feet. Various health benefits have now been demonstrated in a scientific study.

In a new comparative study of sports physicians in Germany and South Africa it was shown that barefoot running is healthy. It has a great influence on foot development, gait and physical performance. (Image: WavebreakMediaMicro / fotolia.com)

Comparative study in Germany and South Africa

A new comparative study of sports physicians in Germany and South Africa has shown that walking barefoot is healthy.

For the study, researchers examined and measured the feet of a total of 1,015 children and adolescents aged six to 18 years in both countries.

As the Hamburg-based sports doctor Karsten Hollander, who ran the research project together with his colleague Prof. Astrid Zech from Jena, said the barefooting of children and adolescents in the South African Western Cape Province around the city of Stellenbosch was independent of the news social status, very common. "The students also go barefoot to the university."

The subjects from Germany were students from Hamburg as well as the neighboring districts of Pinneberg, Segeberg, Stormarn and Duchy of Lauenburg in Schleswig-Holstein. Of course, they wore shoes most of the year.

The students in both countries were observed by the scientists walking, running, jumping and balancing between March 2015 and June 2016. The differences in weight, gender, ethnic background and physical activity were considered.

Long-term consequences for the health later in life

The study was recently published in the journal "Nature".

"The results indicate an influence of habitual shoe use on the development of the feet of children and adolescents," write the study authors.

"For the development of children's feet, it can play an important role, whether you grow up barefoot or shoddy."

According to the researchers, this brings "long-term consequences for motor learning and health later in life".

Tendency to flat feet

In a 20-meter run, it was found that the normally walking barefoot participants at the age of six years to 75 percent increased touchdown with the heel.

For the children from northern Germany, who normally wear shoes, this only amounted to three percent, so they preferred the appearance of the forefoot.

According to Hollander, the difference between the two groups decreases only at the age of puberty.

The researchers also found that shoe children tend to flat feet. Their arch was on average eight to twelve percent shallower than that of barefoot children.

In addition, the South African students could jump from the state three centimeters further and made when balancing on a thin beam fewer mistakes.

Shut down shoe times for a while

"Growing up barefoot has great influence on the foot development, the gait pattern and physical performance," said Hollander, according to the German Press Agency.

He recommends parents to let their offspring go barefoot. "It's enough for a while, for example when playing in the garden or in the sand on the playground to interrupt the shoe times," says the sports physician.

The doctor, who also sees the dangers of barefoot running, believes that "the benefits of walking barefoot outweigh".

Individuals who are afraid of injury may also wear minimalistic shoes with thin, flexible soles that make you feel barefoot.

Children enjoy moving without shoes, because feet are also a tactile organ. Feet would have originally as many nerve cells as hands - but they were partly stunted. (Ad)