I was amazed to learn that up to 90 percent of the footwear that is purchased is used for sexual attraction or status symbol. The review below does help bring to our attention the importance of proper shoes or even better going barefoot if at all possible.

However, like many therapies, I strongly believe the author tends to ascribe far too many benefits to going barefoot, believing that it could improve just about every illness known to man.

Going barefoot is helpful to improve your health but nowhere near as important as getting regular doses of sunshine. So as long as you review the information with a grain of salt I do believe you will find some benefit in what is discussed on these pages.

by James P. Semmel

Chiropodist Dr. Simon J. Wikler pioneered efforts to understand the influences of shoes in the 1950's, yet his work was neglected during the subsequent drug-and-diet-based approaches to medicine. However, the prolific footwear historian and podiatrist Dr. William A. Rossi clearly demonstrated throughout his publications that shoes influence the posture of the human body.

Therefore, coupled with the posture-based approaches to medicine of the distinguished orthopedist Dr. Joel E. Goldthwait, I have expanded Dr. Wikler's insightful work to include a variety of illnesses and conditions whose cause remains unknown.

Obesity and weight problems are just examples of conditions that are actually related to the use of footwear. After all, no diet has ever been definitively identified by nutritionists to permanently control morbid obesity. Something else seems to be hindering the ability to lose weight, and the trends in foot deformation fit perfectly.

For example, the United States requires shoes to be worn constantly, and obesity is visibly widespread. But in Japan, modern shoes are removed in the home or at some restaurants and offices, and obesity is rarely evident.

Moreover, the increased prevalence of obesity and diabetes that have affected younger ages seems to coincide precisely with the material changes in footwear manufacturing over the last few decades.

The modern sneaker, which has an exceptionally thick and inflexible sole, typifies these recent footwear changes. Although American fast food continues to take the popular blame for the growing incidence of obesity around the world, it seems that American sneakers actually deserve the attention.

My outlined treatment thus involves removing the cause; regularly applying a contrast bath--or more descriptively, an alternate cold-hot footbath--to maintain flexibility in the feet; barefoot walking to maintain strength in the feet, resorting to wide-toed, soft-soled moccasins if necessary; and getting plenty of rest.

Depending on age, footwear habits, and daily demands, a 20-minute daily walk, supplemented by a 20-minute contrast footbath every third or fourth day (about twice a week), could actually be sufficient to control or prevent many common conditions, but the regimen should be used as the foundation for any other therapy, which may provide further relief of symptoms if necessary.

About the Author

While some believe that too much curiosity kills cats, James P. Semmel's "vice" of asking just too many questions of doctors and surgeons demonstrates that it can actually have the opposite effect in humans. Shoebusters.com is the result of a decade of efforts by this 32-year-old electrical engineer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to understand the ailments and illnesses afflicting himself and those around him.