Yes, and a new study, published this fall in the journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association suggested that most people do indeed wear the wrong size shoe.
The study, which involved 440 veterans, almost all of whom were male, found that only 25 percent of participants wore correctly-sized shoes. Men with diabetes — which can lead to foot infections and amputations — were five times as likely as others to have poorly fitting shoes. This is troubling because people with diabetes often have poor nerve sensation in the feet and can’t notice cuts and ulcers that can become infected. One reason so many people wear the wrong size shoes, the study suggested, is that patients with loss of sensation cannot tell when trying on shoes whether they are too tight. In addition, many people have one foot longer than the other, and unless shoes are fitted properly to the longer foot, the shoe for that foot will be too tight.
At a minimum, badly-fitting shoes can cause corns and calluses — protective layers of dead skin caused by friction of bone against SHOES, said Dr. Joseph Caporusso, a McAllen, TX podiatrist who is chairman of public education and information for the podiatric group. Poorly-fitted shoes can also exacerbate hammertoes, a condition in which the toes are bent into a claw-like position. Bunions, misaligned big toe joints that can become swollen and tender, tend to run in families but the tendency can be aggravated by too-narrow shoes, he said.
High heels, which throw the weight toward the front of the foot, can cause the Achilles tendon at the back of the ankle to shorten and disrupt the mechanics of walking, said Dr. Peter Paicos, Jr. a podiatrist and associate medical director of the wound healing center at Winchester Hospital.
A shoe is supposed to be “a protective container,” said Paicos. “But we spin fashion into it, so that changes what the container does.
Badly-fitting shoes may not pose a serious problem in young people, he added, but in older people who may already have trouble walking, they can make a bad situation worse.