If the Shoe Fits

Fashion Compromises With Function

For help finding a better balance between looking good and feeling good, there are people like Dale Winzenread, a certified pedorthist for Schuler Shoes in Maple Grove. He evaluates customers’ need for orthotics, modifies shoes, and does foot-health evaluations, and says that typically, people buy shoes that are too soft. “Their feet hurt, so they want cushion. You’re not going to get a lot of function [that is, support] out of those cushioned shoes.”

Winzenread tries to steer customers to more functional shoes—at least for part of the day. “Let’s say a guy is wearing a suit, so he’s got to wear a certain shoe. He’s in that [suit] maybe 60 percent of the time. Well, we’ve still got 40 percent to look for really, really functional shoes—clog-type shoes for around the house—so he’s never damaging the healing process,” he says.

The healing the body does overnight—when you’re off your feet—can be quickly undone in the morning, he warns. “I counsel people to have something under their foot first thing in the morning. Whatever overuse injury they have, when they step down onto a flat surface—even a carpeted floor—they can damage the healing process,” he says. “Then they’re rehealing it the next night, and they get caught up in this vicious cycle.”

Now, Anderson occasionally dresses down to business casual and wears slip-on shoes when she’s with clients who are friends. She still has the offending pair of boots, “but I haven’t worn them.”

Inactivity Strikes Again

Anderson’s experience isn’t unusual, but it’s not the most common foot problem, either. Pellersels says there’s one foot injury that outnumbers all others: Plantar fascitis affects the bottom of the foot. The plantar fascia, a band of muscle tissue that connects the heel to the ball of the foot, gets overstretched and causes arch and heel pain and bone spurs—irregular outgrowths of the heel bone where the plantar fascia has pulled away.

“Plantar fascitis . . . has to do a lot with inactive lifestyle, where maybe you’re sitting behind a desk all day long. The muscles just do not get strong underneath the arch, and then on the weekend you go out and try to do something that’s active, and maybe you’re wearing sandals or something like that, and an injury occurs,” Pellersels says. Supportive footwear helps prevent the problem, he adds, but “you need to work your way into activity levels, not just play the weekend-warrior type thing.”