Fashion ‘Do’ or Postural ‘Don’t’? How High Heels Can Ruin More Than Just Your Feet.

Ahh… New York Fashion Week! There is nothing in the world like it. Every late summer and early winter, the city’s collective focus turns to the fashion industry’s nine-day showcase of the next season’s offerings. Even if you don’t pay attention to fashion, you can feel a shift in the energy of the city. The slow pace of the summer is suddenly dialed up to full speed. There is a heightened tone of creativity and consumerism, two of NYC’s dominant forces. Somehow, New York feels even more like itself: hectic, vibrant, and a little bit nuts.

For women who do follow fashion, (and to some extent, this applies simply to women who wear clothes) all this fashion focus might tempt you to refresh your shoe collection with a new pair of high heels. After all, heels make your legs look great, add a little height, and in many cases are thought to be essential to a woman’s work wardrobe or evening ensemble. There’s no way around it, high heels are a staple of women’s fashion and have been for decades. To not wear high-heeled shoes would suggest that you’re out of step with fashion norms or are lax about appropriate work wear.

 

I, however, strongly suggest to women everywhere that we stop wearing them, that we stop buying them, and that we even stop designing them.

“WHOA!!! SLOW DOWN LADY!” WHAT DID A PAIR OF PUMPS EVER DO TO YOU?”, you might ask in distress. Trust me, I know the many objections that women have to the idea that it would benefit them to shut down their high heel addiction. And to be honest, my personal experience with high heels is limited, mostly because I refuse to tolerate the suffering that goes along with a stiletto heel.

 

As a yoga teacher and alignment therapist, most of my workday is spent barefoot. Movement and comfort are higher priorities than fashion in my world, so I usually wear flats. I make similar footwear choices outside the office. I wore low-heeled ankle boots to my own casual wedding and flat sandals to a friend’s formal engagement party. If there were an unspoken rule about women’s wear, I would rather break it than risk breaking my ankle.

However, for so many women, this is not the case. Corporate culture has sent the message that women are expected to wear high-heeled shoes if they are to be taken seriously at work. Can you imagine any male executive subjecting himself to wearing high heels or cowboy boots to reflect his professional worth?

If we want to portray competence, elegance, and femininity, then we better wear shoes that communicate our status and our abilities. What? Somehow, heels became synonymous with achievement, and our bodies and health have suffered the consequences. This paradigm needs to shift in order for women to regain control of their alignment, and thereby reverse the effect of long-term high heel wearing. In order to do this, we must first understand some of what the body goes through when attempting to balance on a pair of high heels, as well as the varied and painful effects this can have on our health.

 

In my next blog, we’ll discuss the specific physical ramifications of wearing high heels, a simple story of the physical havoc high heels inflict/wreak on your body.

I would love to hear your opinions on high heels and how you feel about them, how your office treats them, and some work-arounds that you may have found helpful to you. Pleas send your comments to me at: elaine@bodyfixmethod.com.