Yes, you’ve seen half the female population wearing these boots, or if you’re a female, maybe you’re guilty of wearing them too. (I know I am). I actually think these boots are extremely WARM and comfortable, but I didn’t thikn they’d be bad for my feet. This can either be true, or be research conducted to promote a new kind of boot. So, what about when we don’t wear any shoes and walk at home, aren’t we walking flat there aswell? Good or bad for our feet, these boots aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
– Anjali
Nicole Baute, Living Reporter
We’ve all seen the UGG shuffle, usually performed by a young woman in a mall. Hair in a pony tail, she sports sweatpants or jeans with her soft, clunky boots, either true sheepskin UGG or knock-off.
Listen closely and you can hear the scuffing sound.
Now podiatrists say walking long distances in UGG boots or knock-offs can be terrible for your feet, especially if you already have foot problems or if you’re young and your feet are still forming.
Dr. Ian Drysdale, principal of the British College of Osteopathic Medicine, set off a mini media frenzy in the U.K. this week with remarks that the soft boots are “literally breaking” the feet of the young women who wear them.
He says he grew concerned after noticing tons of girls between the ages 8 and 16 in both original and knock-off versions of the boots.
“Because they’re so young, their feet, the bones of their feet and the ligaments of their feet haven’t fully formed, so they’re still quite plastic,” he says.
“And that means they’re deformable as well as formable.”
Drysdale says the boots lack support and a lot of walking causes them to collapse on the inside. This allows the foot and ankle to roll inward, creating a flatfoot effect and stressing the ankle and knee joints.
“You get this slight knock-kneed effect,” he says.
“That puts pressure on the low back and so on.”
Nobody expected these sheepskin boots to have such a long life after rising to notoriety several years ago when Pamela Anderson started wearing them with her red bikini on the set of Baywatch. Soon, the likes of Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow joined in the clomping. Despite being condemned as a fashion faux pas, the boots are still tremendously popular among women and girls.
