These were once my favorite heels. Long ago, I was a shoe model for a Jason Ashley Wright story on -- you guessed it -- painful high heels.
Considering I nearly wiped out today on my way back from lunch, this topic seemed appropriate -- high heels.
Now, I used to be one of those women who added 3-plus inches to my height nearly every day, by wearing high heels.
People who actually witnessed me on a rare flat-footed instance always remarked at how "short" I truly was -- short being relative, I'm 5-foot-5-inches tall. Ah, the joys of being a female.
Then I turned 30. Sure, I still wear my heels most days, albeit in the 2- to 2 1/2-inch variety. But thanks to my near spill today outside of a downtown restaurant, it seems that I might be rocking the ballet flats more often.
But then I read this: A blog from the
New York Times, citing a newly published study from the Musculoskeletal Research Program at Griffith University in Australia.
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers examined nine women who wore high heels every day for at least 40 hours a week -- the true Carrie Bradshaws.
This is what they found, according to the blog -- that the high heelers, "moved with shorter, more forceful strides than the control group, their feet perpetually in a flexed, toes-pointed position. This movement pattern continued even when the women kicked off their heels and walked barefoot. As a result, the fibers in their calf muscles had shortened and they put much greater mechanical strain on their calf muscles than the control group did."
So that's it -- proof from a scientific perspective, that high heels have real repercussions.
Will this matter to fashionistas? Probably not. Remember when we recently learned that cellphones emit
radiation?
Has that stopped you from chatting away on your iPhone? Not me.
The study did not admonish wearing high heels, so don't feel sorry for Christian Louboutin quite yet. It recommended that the high heel obsessed wear their heels only a couple of times a week. And to take them off when you can.
Will this keep me on my toes? We shall see.
This question is for the ladies only (sorry guys, but we're the ones who wear them):
In light of this study, do you say 'yay' to high heels, or should we keep them on the shelf?
