Strictly no heels

It doesn’t matter the height of the heel, but dancing away in high heels is bad for your feet say scientists in the UK and China.

It’s not all glittering and rosy when dancing – high heels mean uneven weight distribution

It’s common knowledge that walking around in high heels all the time is bad for the health of your feet, but no one had really looked at the relationship between heel height and the force on the soles of a dancer’s feet.

Step up scientists from Liverpool John Moores University and Ningbo University who looked at the forces exerted on the soles of six professional dancers while performing a Latin dance in barefoot, 4.5, 7.5 and 10cm heels. They used biomechanical measurements to calculate the load of each sole zone and the significance of heel height was determined with statistical analysis.

They found that barefoot dancing spreads the force evenly between the heel and toe, but dancing in heels forces the weight forward onto the toes and the higher the heel the greater the force. Dancing in 10cm heels could lead to three times the atmospheric pressure being applied to the toes.

“Our results indicate that increasing heel height could cause an increase of impact forces in the forefoot and a reduction in the heel region,” they said, “The effect of the heel height in dancing is different from normal gait and the lateral metatarsal region was identified as the most intensely affected zone in dancing.”

The shift of the high pressure region from heel to forefront when dancing in high heels can lead to discomfort in the foot and a condition called plantar fascitis are prolonged periods. The researchers suggest testing the stresses on professional dancers’ feet through detailed biomechanical study could help improve understanding of human gait and improve the design of dance shoes to reduce the adverse effects associated with high heels.