Fun foot facts

Here’s a collection of fun foot facts, in no particular order...

  • A quarter of all the body’s bones are in the feet (There are 52 bones in a pair of feet).
  • Butterflies taste with their feet, gannets incubate eggs under their webbed feet and elephants use their feet to hear – they pick up vibrations of the earth through their soles.
  • The average child will take its first steps around 13-17 months - but between 10 and 18 months falls within the “normal” range.
  • During the first year of a child’s life their feet grow rapidly, reaching almost half their adult size.  By 12, a child’s foot is about 90% cent of its adult length.
  • When walking, each time your heel lifts off the ground it forces the toes to carry one half of your body weight.
  • In a pair of feet, there are 250,000 sweat glands.
  • The first foot coverings were probably animal skins, which Stone Age peoples in northern Europe and Asia tied around their ankles in cold weather.
  • Cigarette smoking is the biggest cause of Peripheral Vascular Disease (disease of the arteries of the feet and legs) which often leads to pain on walking, ulceration, infection and in the most severe cases - gangrene and possible amputation.
  • Walking is the best exercise for your feet. It contributes to your general health by improving circulation and weight control.
  • Standing in one spot is far more tiring than walking because the demands are being made on the same few muscles for a longer length of time.
  • Sweat glands in the feet produce approximately half a pint of perspiration daily.
  • The average person will walk around 115,000 miles in a life time, that's more than four times around the earth!
  • Women have about four times as many foot problems as men. High heels are partly to blame.
  • About 60-70% of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of diabetic nerve damage, which in severe forms can lead to lower limb amputations. Approximately 56,000 people a year lose their foot or leg to diabetes.
  • There are currently more websites on the Internet having to do with foot fetishes than with foot health.
  • The average men’s size is 10 1/2.
  • Madeline Albrecht holds the world record for most feet sniffed at 5,600.
  • The average woman walks three miles more per day than the average male.
  • Fingernails and toenails grow faster during hot weather, pregnancy and teenage years.
  • The ancient Romans were the first to construct distinct left and right shoes. Before that, shoes could be worn on either foot.
  • The average foot gets two sizes longer when a person stands up.
  • Shoe sizes were devised in England by King Edward II who declared in 1324 that the diameter of one barely corn would represent one full shoe size. That’s still true today.
  • The feet can contract an array of nasty diseases from communal showers: Planter Wart, Athletes foot, Ring worm!