3 ms·

YMMV, but I would recommend all young children spend as much time barefoot as possible, and in thin flexible shoes the rest of the time (probably not a bad idea

YMMV, but I would recommend all young children spend as much time barefoot as possible, and in thin flexible shoes the rest of the time (probably not a bad idea for older people as well, but the difference is most extreme for those just learning to move). In San Francisco, my 3-year-old can be barefoot outside most of the year; in places with hotter/colder weather shoes might be necessary during some months. Anecdotally, being barefoot dramatically improves kids’ rate/quality of learning basic locomotion (balance, stability, agility, speed). The kids I know who are habitually barefoot learn how to walk and run with a graceful and efficient gait in a matter of months and by 1.5 years old are quite mobile, while kids wearing stiff shoes often are still toddling around at age 3. (I’m sure gross quantity of practice also makes a big difference; some young kids are pushed all around in a stroller/car seat/etc. and spend very little time walking for themselves. The frequently-barefoot kids I know all spend a lot of time outdoors running and climbing around. I am sure even in identical circumstances there will be high variance in young kids’ motor skills. But I bet if we took a random sample of yuppies’ children in a modern suburb and compared them to a random sample of kids from a hunter–gatherer tribe somewhere, the differences would be quite stark.) It makes plenty of theoretical sense as well: (a) the bottoms of the feet are incredibly dense with nerves, and (b) the feet and lower legs have a huge number of tiny interconnected moving parts. If learning anything is largely a matter of trying a variety of minor adjustments and then gathering as much data about the result as possible, and then throwing it at our personal deep learning neural net machines (a.k.a. brains, specifically the motor cortex), then wearing stiff shoes is a huge handicap, both limiting degrees of possible motion and also obstructing most of the measurement apparatus.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
There is some interesting history to going barefoot in the US. Historically, poor southern whites went barefoot because that was cheaper than buying shoes. This barefoot lifestyle ensured they would stay poor by infecting them with hookworm, giving them lifelong anemia. This gave rise to the stereotype of the poor southern white as pale, lazy, and sluggish. Getting these people to wear shoes was actually a major public health accomplishment.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  Hookworm (like other parasites) can be a pretty serious public health problem. It’s great that hookworm is way down in the USA, and tragic that it still affects 400+ million people around the world, and makes many of them anemic, causes brain problems, etc., especially since (from my understanding) it is pretty easy to treat with medication. I’m curious to what extent the decline of hookworm in the US South can be attributed to better sanitation and healthcare and increasing urbanization vs. footwear per se. On the other hand, poor people in the US South now have a shocking rate of obesity (in some places >50%), because they now spend little time walking around outside, spend much of the day sitting, and eat an unhealthy diet (probably not an exhaustive list of contributing factors). From what I can tell the public health impact of pervasive obesity can be just as serious as parasites like hookworm. * * * If someone plans to live in a tropical rural village somewhere that people habitually defecate outdoors, wearing shoes might be a reasonable precaution. For most people reading this website though, being barefoot isn’t going to harm their children.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

There is some interesting history to going barefoot in the US. Historically, poor southern whites went barefoot because that was cheaper than buying shoes. This barefoot lifestyle ensured they would stay poor by infecting them with hookworm, giving them lifelong anemia. This gave rise to the stereotype of the poor southern white as pale, lazy, and sluggish. Getting these people to wear shoes was actually a major public health accomplishment.

jacobolus 7y ago
Hookworm (like other parasites) can be a pretty serious public health problem. It’s great that hookworm is way down in the USA, and tragic that it still affects 400+ million people around the world, and makes many of them anemic, causes brain problems, etc., especially since (from my understanding) it is pretty easy to treat with medication. I’m curious to what extent the decline of hookworm in the US South can be attributed to better sanitation and healthcare and increasing urbanization vs. footwear per se. On the other hand, poor people in the US South now have a shocking rate of obesity (in some places >50%), because they now spend little time walking around outside, spend much of the day sitting, and eat an unhealthy diet (probably not an exhaustive list of contributing factors). From what I can tell the public health impact of pervasive obesity can be just as serious as parasites like hookworm. * * * If someone plans to live in a tropical rural village somewhere that people habitually defecate outdoors, wearing shoes might be a reasonable precaution. For most people reading this website though, being barefoot isn’t going to harm their children.