So, now the experts tell us that going about barefoot damages your feet? (updated)

'"Thousands of Kiwi kids spend their summers without shoes, but now a podiatrist has warned they could be doing irreversible damage by going barefoot in the sun.

John Miller says running school cross-country races barefooted is particularly damaging, and can make children's feet wider."

TV3 News

Video no longer available

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Gary Moller comments:

Warning: The following images may be disturbing to some podiatrists:

Well, I have viewed some ignorant rubbish masquerading as news on tv; but this TV3 item just about takes the cake! And where is the balance in this item? Its nothing more than misinformed sensationalism.

Photo One: Gary and Lorraine Moller 1950's New Zealand. Barefoot until secondary school. Lorraine"s strong feet took her to multiple Olympic marathons various running records and world championships.

Photo 2: My niece, Tinara, winning the sprints barefoot and injury free

Photo 3: My children, Myra, Mary-Ann and Kelvin with champion runner, Rod Dixon. Barefoot, tanned and healthy!

My son, Alama, winning the sprints - barefoot and fast!










Here we are, a website just for you: Parents for Barefoot Children

Let's focus on the real causes of foot pain: obese, soft kids who are driven everywhere and not allowed outside lest they be harmed by: the sun/the pervert/the cold/the heat/the hard ground etc etc. And we can't let them get tired or hungry can we? That is child abuse.

Oh! Back to the news item: About the darling Zola Budd and the fiery Mary Decker... I have it from good sources that Decker planned to spike the barefoot Zola if she dared to take the lead. If you watch the video very carefully you will see Decker attempting to do just that a few meters earlier on. Decker succeeded on the second attempt, tripping herself and injuring Zola in the process. That was the end of Zola's running career as she was booed and jeered out of the stadium by the partisan US crowd.
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Lynn Staheli, MD
Quoted in The New York Times on Aug 14, 1991

Children with the healthiest and most supple feet are those who habitually go barefoot, according to Dr. Lynn T. Staheli and a growing number of other pediatric orthopedists. His studies of developing nations show that non-shoe-wearers have better flexibility and mobility, stronger feet, fewer deformities, and less complaints than those who wear shoes regularly. He says that, when a child must wear a shoe, it should be lightweight, flexible, shaped more or less quadrangularly, and above all, should not have the arch supports and stiff sides once deemed necessary to give the foot support. Many pediatric orthopedists strongly oppose "corrective" or "orthopedic" shoes for straightening foot and leg deformities like flat feet, pigeon toes, knock-knees, or bowlegs. Dr. Staheli and others contend that there is no evidence that corrective shoes correct anything, and that most of the supposed deformities correct themselves in almost all cases.

Podiatry Jargon Interpreted

Read this which is written by a podiatrist:

"Footwear can be particularly useful in helping to reduce trauma to the calcaneal apophysis and incorporating some degree of positive pitch (heel raise) to the foot thereby reducing the pulling from the gistro soleil complex."

By the way: It is not “gistro” it is “gastro "(gastrocnemius).

Why do some health professionals persist in using such unintelligible language? Pompous professional ego-pumping? Or, is it to justify charging $800 for a $10 heel insert? Its maddening. All it does is confuse their patients and reduces the flow of information from professional to patient (education) and at the risk of causing a kind of unhealthy dependency.

What he is saying?

“If there is heel pain, a heel raise may be helpful by reducing strain on the calf muscle and heel bone”.

My advice: Hire an interpreter next time you go get your toenails trimmed



Do you have a question?
Email Gary: gary at myotec.co.nz (Replace the "at" with @ and remove spaces). Please include any relevant background information to your question.

Podiatrist tells Gary off - Hallux Rigidus has been misdiagnosed

Dear Gary Moller, My name is Daniel Bagnall and I am currently practicing Podiatric Medicine in Australia.

I would just like to alert you re: your treatment for Hallux Rigidus (fix it by manipulation), that this patient of yours has been misdiagnosed. I’m sorry to be so blunt but as a practitioner I find it very frustrating when the incorrect terminology is being used on the internet, please take the time to refer to the medical literature before posting such material:-

Normal dorsiflexion ROM at the 1st MPJ is 65-70 degrees ROM, this can clearly be observed at precisely 4:00 min in your video, pause and observe the position of the hallux, is the hallux flexing <65-70 style="font-size:130%;">
Gary Moller responds:
Thank you Daniel for pointing out that there appears to be no reference to the use of manipulation of hallux rigidus in the literature. This is one of the reasons why I produced the video. You will note that I advised in the video that this procedure be done by a professional (I assume from your writing in protest that you are not trained in this procedure).

I was first taught this technique about 25 years ago when undertaking a course in deep tissue massage by a sports massage therapist who made his living working almost exclusively on Olympic class middle and long distance runners mostly in the United States. At the time he was considered by many athletes to be the best. The simplicity and the effectiveness of this method in dealing with "impacted" toe joints, as we called them back then was astonishing. These kinds of toe injuries are common in runners and can be crippling to the point of being career-ending. I have never seen a failure of this procedure. Of course we are usually dealing with these injuries early (About Grade I-II).

You will also note in my accompanying advice with the video the use of nutritional supplements such as glucosamine and MSM to assist healing. I doubt you will find anything about this in the literature on hallux rigidus either; but that does not stop be advising the use of these supplements because they help expedite recovery.

As the literature (erroneously) states, this condition is progressive. The treatment offered in the literature does nothing to prevent progression which I find appalling. I can tell you that the condition is reversible in addition to being progressive, if gotten to early. This mirrors the view given to many other conditions. Take blood pressure for example: the usual medical approach only deals with the symptoms and the condition inevitably progresses. In most cases the condition can be reversed. As with the sore big toe, the sooner one intervenes with effective treatment, the more complete the recovery.

In the case of the woman in the video, you need to remember that her toe had already been manipulated several times. The toe in the video demonstrates remarkable restoration of mobility (She is naturally hyper-mobile in her fingers and toes btw).

If I was to obediently follow the guidelines in the literature, this healthy and athletic woman would be subjected to needless and costly medical treatment and eventual disfigurement by deliberate joint destruction surgery - the inevitable outcome of this kind of "progressive injury". We commenced about three months after the injury (So it was hardly acute!) and recovery has been quick and uneventful (other than the pain of the manipulation).

This procedure works very well on little toes as well.