| |
Our
in-house podiatrist is passionate about shoes and
feet. In a country such as South Africa which enjoys
the benefits of a mild climate for most of the year,
many people choose to be unshod in leisure hours.
Her undergraduate work (published in The Foot,
2005), dispelled the myth that wider feet are caused
by walking unshod (barefoot) in childhood. Rather,
foot width development is dependent on genetic
factors, shared by multiple ethnic groups. Guided by
questions raised by the late Dr William Rossi, who
was a leading consultant to the American footwear
industry,
|
|
and with a firm belief
in the ability of science to improve the fit metric
of fashionable shoes, her work seeks to find
evidence to support stylish footwear design that is
comfortable and promotes good foot function. Her
ground breaking 3-D measurement study of women's
feet in South Africa, utilizing a lazer scanner and
patented methodology, yielded data that helped
explain why the percentage of women reporting foot
pathology due to their shoes (80%) was so high.
|
|
|
One of the
reasons found was that 1 in 3 woman in South Africa need a
wider shoe across the toes, yet still have a relatively
narrow heel. Also revealed is that no two feet are
identical, so that the Froggie mission is not one of
developing the non-existent perfect shoe but rather of using
technology and design features which provide stylish comfort
and good foot function for as many foot types as possible.
|
|
of the Soul of Africa Initiative