09/13/2016
The case for shedding our shoes!
Shed the shoes
Did you know that children who take their shoes off at school tend to be better behaved and more likely to engage in learning? A ten-year study carried out at Bournemouth University, observing thousands of children in 100 schools in 25 countries around the world also found that children who attend school without shoes are more likely to arrive earlier and leave later. As an added benefit, damage to soft furniture and cleaning costs are drastically reduced as shoes are left at the door.
There is no clear reason as to why taking shoes off works, although numerous cultural suggestions make sense, especially when combined. Chinese culture uses the reflexology of the foot on the floor, and in India it is a sign of respect to take your shoes off when entering a sacred place, while in many European countries, children report that it feels more like being at home.
All of these theories make sense to me, and I would add that taking shoes off increases stimulation and wakes you up—pretty useful with a room full of teenagers at 2pm.
There is another long-term benefit of taking shoes off that shouldn’t be ignored; that of musculoskeletal health. The notion of flat feet causing injuries has long since been dismissed, and we now know that foot deformities like bunions and Morton’s foot, where the second metatarsal bone is longer than the first, is a good predictor of myofascial pain.
We also know that such deformities are almost absent in unshod populations. Given that the bones of the foot don’t harden until the late teens or early twenties, it can reasonably be assumed that ill-fitting shoes in childhood are a major contributor. What if the Department of Education could save the Department of Health money in the long term by encouraging kids—and staff—to remove their shoes?
http://www.mayonews.ie/living/nurturing/28502-back-to-school-feet-first
