Bunions are a condition that more commonly affects older adults, but that doesn’t mean that we need to wait until we’re in our fifties, sixties and beyond to start working to prevent and treat these big toe joint disorders. In fact, a recent review of youth footwear choices shows that as a society, we could all benefit from being more mindful of bunion causes and risk factors at an earlier age. We explore why bunion prevention should start earlier in today’s blog.
Why Bunion Prevention Should Start Early
While a few different factors can put a person at risk of developing a bunion, it is generally agreed that poor fitting shoes are a leading contributing factor. High heels are one example of a shoe that forces your foot into an odd position, and extended time in these shoes can overstress the big toe joint and make it more likely that it will shift out of position. Wearing shoes that are too tight or overly small can also increase your bunion risk, and the affects of tight shoes may be noticeable at an earlier age than most people realize.
To get a better understanding of how poor footwear choices could impact bunion positioning in youth, researchers examined the feet of 187 school children in Southern Spain. The average student was 8.07 years old, and researchers measured their feet and compared them to the size of the shoes they regularly wore. An overly tight shoe was considered any shoe where the difference between the foot length and the inside length of the shoe was less than nine millimeters.
Researchers found that 38.5 percent of schoolchildren wore shoes that were too short. They also found that there was a strong correlation between short footwear and hallux valgus angle in 10-year-old boys and nine-year-old girls. Not surprisingly, this age range also had the highest incidence of poor shoe fit for boys and girls. This happens to coincide with the peak overall foot growth, which tends to precede the peak overall body growth at the onset of puberty, which typically occurs in the age range of 7-8 for girls and 8-9 for boys.
This doesn’t mean that these children are doomed to develop juvenile bunions, but joint stress caused by ill-fitting shoes can impact the big toe joint such that these individuals are more likely to develop bunions later in life. The better we are at ensuring that our growing children are in in a well-fitting pair of shoes, the less likely it is that excessive pressure will be put on their big toe joint at a vulnerable time in their life. An ounce of prevention in their youth can save them a bunch of trouble in their golden years by greatly reducing their risk of developing a bunion.
Of course, if you’re already dealing with a bunion and want to determine the best way to manage the condition, we hope you’ll reach out to Dr. Silverman by filling out this contact form.