• Another podiatrist rant

  Filed under rants
  Jan 16

  A frequent argument against running barefoot made by podiatrists is that only people with perfect feet can run barefoot. The population at large has too many foot problems and need footwear. I disagree, in no small part because I can run barefoot, and oil is to water what perfection is to me. In fact, any hypothesis that requires perfection on my part in any way shape or form should be dismissed.

  But perhaps I’m being too modest; humility is one of my more endearing traits. That and sarcasm, I suppose, if you were to be flexible with the definition of “endearing.” Let’s say my feet are perfect. Just like Barefoot Ted and Barefoot Ken Bob and Chris McDougall. Shouldn’t a podiatrist be curious to see what a perfect foot looks like? Since they’re so rare and all. If I were a gardener I’d want to see a perfect rose. If I were an archeologist, I’d want to see a perfect fossil. If I were a plastic surgeon, I’d want to see… well, you get the idea.

  But not the podiatrist. Which is strange. Wouldn’t information about a perfect foot be valuable? Wouldn’t seeing a real, live, perfect foot in action help someone whose occupation is to heal broken feet and prescribe corrective footwear make proper diagnosis? At the very least, I’d imagine someone who went to school for feet would say, “Cool! Look at those perfect feet! Look at ‘em go! Neato!” But instead, nothing. Why is that?

  I suppose if Oliver Stone were directing this movie, the plotline would be evil corporate podiatrists use evil corporate shoe companies to cripple an unsuspecting world to boost orthotics sales. Oh, and later in a surprise twist it is revealed that Bill Bowerman killed Kennedy.

  But surely that can’t be it. Any podiatrists out there want to chime in? You can say “I have a… uh… friend who’s a podiatrist, and she says…” in the comments, if you want to avoid my fiery wrath.

  Fiery… fire… cooking… baking… cookies… Crap! I was supposed to make cookies. Gotta go.

  3 Comments

3 Responses to “Another podiatrist rant”

1. 

   ac said on January 16th, 2010 at 9:19 pm

   The perfect foot is perfectly flat.
   A few years ago I went to a “sports medicine” place and was seen by an orthopedic surgeon for my bad knees.
   He prescribed $500 custom orthotics. I paid it. I just wanted to run again.
   I laid flat on a table on my stomach, with my feet hanging off in the “relaxed position”. They made casts of my relaxed feet, and then made these fancy orthotics from the casts. They were kind of a wedge, almost an 1″ high in the heel, tapering to a thin foam under the toes. The bottom of each orthotic wedge was perfectly flat, and the top a perfect mold of my foot. I guess the idea was the orthotics filled in the gap between my imperfect feet and the perfect flat floor.

   So I guess if my feet had been perfectly flat, then no orthotics would be required at all. No correction means perfection!

   So the the perfect foot is perfectly flat.

2. 

   Barefoot Josh said on January 17th, 2010 at 8:49 am

   Well that’s interesting. I wonder if a podiatrist would assume Barefoot Ted’s feet are flat.

   I don’t want to be all I-don’t-understand-the-science-therefore-it’s-not-true, but, well, how does flattening out the foot help the knees?

   One of these days I’m going to have to meet a podiatrist and ask.

3. 

   sonya said on January 18th, 2010 at 10:12 pm

   @ac -So did the orthotics help the knee pain? If not you probably should have seem a podiatrist, since the philosophy of orthotics differs largely between orthopedic doc and podiatrists.

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