I've been barefoot for probably 2/3 of my life and idk if thats the cause... but my feet are crazy wide. I can never find shoes that fit right. Do any of you have really wide feet and if so where do you buy your shoes?
Sounds like the chicken or the egg thing. I had someone (a lawyer who thought she knew everything about everything - the worst kind) tell me that not wearing shoes would lead to wide feet. My next door neighbor growing up had wide feet and she was constantly barefoot. Personally, I have wide feet. While I've only been going truly barefoot (no shoes, socks, sandals, etc.) for the past 5 years or so, I've always been one to take off my shoes and run around in my socks the moment I got in the door. I've just never liked the feel of shoes. The question then is - are a person's feet wide because they go barefoot, or do people go barefoot because their feet are wide and shoes are uncomfortable? For me I'd say it's the latter. Wide feet seem to run in my family, and there are several family members who don't have the same sock feet/bare feet practices that I have. Then again, there are lots of people who go barefoot just for barefoot's sake. I think I fall into that group as well - shoes suck and bare feet are cool!
You might be right about that. When I moved down here (to a rural area where you'd think bare footing was common) I always got remarks about being barefoot. I was the only one. Idk if I'm the only one with wide feet though. I never hear of people having trouble finding shoes that fit around here. But wal mart doesn't even come close to shoes that fit. I have to get size 13w just to get close to the width but that leaves me with like 2inches of shoe left for my foot to slide up and down in.
Barefooters get 'wide' feet only in the same way women in the 18th century get 'wide' waists from not wearing a corset. That's how our feet are supposed to be! Shoes push the toes in, especially woman's but even men's shoes are rarely if ever truly wide enough that they allow for truly enough room for the foot to be as wide as it is supposed to be, even when stepping down.
after years my feet widened to the point that i only can put my old boots on without socks. the solution,stay barefoot.
Going back to your original question, my feet are relatively small and wide. I found that buying shoes a couple of sizes larger helped quite a bit - easy for me, but difficult for you if you wear a size 13. One of the great things about the internet is being able to do searches for odd sizes, etc. I'd recommend trying that. Companies are pretty good about letting you return/exchange items that don't fit. FYI - I asked my podiatrist about my buying shoes a couple of sizes large. He said it was fine as long as my feet don't slip around. Okay, I know, we should be barefoot all the time, but I have to give the right, professional impression when I'm in a business meeting (little do they know of my other side ).
once upon a time when shoes were far more expensive because they were custom made by hand and fit for the owner's foot the problem of 'wide feet' did not exist. people did not own so many pairs and many could not afford more than one -or none- but if properly made they were really good ones. it was better than having a wide choice of cheap ones that most likely won't be very comfortable or even hurting. it is mass production, which is wasting a terrific amount of resources to produce utterly mediocre goods, pollute and add nothing to the quality of our lives. the last time i had to buy a pair i really couldn't find some really comfortable one. each and every pair did hurt my odd, wide feet in some way. too narrow (most of them). too low on the top of the foot (terrible). abrasive. hurting here, hurting there. ugly beyond contempt and digging a hole in my ankle. finally, sick and tired, i picked a pair of sneakers that were less painful than the others and i put them some 4 times in a year. now if I'm not wrong they're in the garage collecting dust and maybe giving shelter to a tribe of cockroaches thats a shame.. i remember my first pair of frankenstein's i was issued in my childhood because of flat feet and all the other woes. not only they did hurt like hell but i became soon a popular subject of derision among school mates, and finally we found out that they had been crafted poorly and were detrimental to my health, too. i still have to get past this trauma
I always had quite wide feet even before starting to barefoot on a regular basis... therefore, if I have to wear closed-toed shoes, I choose the wide-body models from Birkenstock - and a pair of wide size 11.5 are quite large enough to accomodate my wide feet as well as to extinguish small bushfires... Wiggling toes on wide bare feet, ~*Ganesha*~
I think I'm gonna have some custom shoes made. I wonder what the percentage of people who have wide feet are? must not be very high because not many stores carry extra wide shoes. that or they don't care or the people don't complain enough.
A long time ago I was in the NYC Port Authority bus terminal. I met this girl, Trish, who was also barefoot. She was taking a bus to the Meadowlands for a Grateful Dead show. I told her I liked her style and color shoes. We both had black feet. As I picked up my right sole to show her, she put her sole on mine and said her feet were really wide. Despite being about 10 years younger than me, we both had the same width! She was lucky to be able to work in a small clothing store in Greenwich Village barefoot. Trish told me she didn't even own a pair of shoes to wear if she wanted to. Too bad we never hooked up after that. She was with a blond girl who was also barefoot, but had very clean feet. The blond's boyfriend was shod.
Just my opinion here but, aren't wide feet more muscular and stable. When your feet are cradled and supported they don't use the muscles that are supposed to be used. I feel my feet have become more sturdy and muscular with thicker insteps and added width from a gain in fitness. Ankles and calves also gain in size from greater use.
I have been going barefoot for many years. My feet are narrow (size 9.5 - 10, b or c width). While they are in good shape they certainly cannot be considered wide. I think it has more to do with genetics than anything else.
