There are millions of women wearing high-heeled shoes in their daily life. Over the years it has been identified that there are many injuries related with the wearing of high-heeled shoes. It is important to note that only a limited number of studies have actually even been conducted to investigate the effect of wearing high-heeled shoes on a wearer’s posture. Anteriorly shifted COP, higher knee flexion, leaned back trunk are common results of high-heeled posture when compared with the normal flat foot stance. No prior study has investigated the effect of other important factors of high-heeled shoes rather than the heel height itself. In this study, the effect of heel height, wedge angles and seat lengths of high-heeled shoes on the posture of high-heeled shoe wearers will be investigat...[ Read more ]

There are millions of women wearing high-heeled shoes in their daily life. Over the years it has been identified that there are many injuries related with the wearing of high-heeled shoes. It is important to note that only a limited number of studies have actually even been conducted to investigate the effect of wearing high-heeled shoes on a wearer’s posture. Anteriorly shifted COP, higher knee flexion, leaned back trunk are common results of high-heeled posture when compared with the normal flat foot stance. No prior study has investigated the effect of other important factors of high-heeled shoes rather than the heel height itself. In this study, the effect of heel height, wedge angles and seat lengths of high-heeled shoes on the posture of high-heeled shoe wearers will be investigated. Some studies have shown there are specific foot bed shapes which give maximum perceived feelings for the high-heeled shoe wearer. In this study the postural behaviour associated with these specific settings will also be explored. During the study we identified that under certain conditions the wearer’s posture behaves closely to that of the flat foot stance. COP of the subjects is laid very close to the flat foot COP when the seat length of the high-heeled shoe was adjusted to subject’s heel length. Upper body posture maintained close to neutral posture in some conditions. With this study we can argue that by adjusting the high-heeled shoe parameters we can correct the postural changes to get it very close to a flat foot stance posture.