The right and left sides of our body are often thought of as mirror images of each other. However, the same does not apply to the feet. So why are our feet usually two different sizes?
If you have one foot bigger than the other, don’t worry. It happens. Often.
“Nobody has two feet exactly the same,” he says Corrine Rennepodiatrist at New York Foot and Ankle, at . “Our bodies are a little symmetrical, but are not completely symmetrical“.
One with 4,000 women and 2,800 men in the United States, published in 1983 in the magazine American Orthopedic Foot & Ankle Societydiscovered that none of the participants had a pair of feet exactly the same in size or shape.
Another, published in 2018 in SATRA Bulletin, a footwear and leather trade publication, supports this investigation.
After analyzing 2,890 people in the UK, the study found that up to 19% of people may have feet that differ in length by more than 4 mm — about half a shoe size in the US and UK.
“A similar trend is observed in China: no less than 24% of people have a difference of more than 4 millimeters“, reported the 2018 study.
Which is bigger?
There appears to be no consensus on whether the left or right foot is generally the larger of the pair. According to the Center for Foot Care in Liberty Township, Ohio, about 80% of the U.S. population has a left foot bigger than right foot.
City Chiropody and Podiatry in London confirms this statistic, attributing this difference to the fact that the majority of the world’s population is right-handedwhich means that the left foot is more exercised and becomes slightly larger to keep the body balanced.
The 1983 study noted that although the left foot is generally assumed to be larger than the right, researchers found that in reality, the chances that a person’s largest foot is the left or law were equal.
In contrast, the 2018 study found that the right foot was generally the longest, with 50.7% of UK women and 54.8% of UK men having the right foot longer than the left.
A certain amount of asymmetry in the human body is due to normal variation. “Our hands are not completely symmetricalnor our eyes”, said Renne.
Why?
There are also other factors that can lead to these size differences. “For example, women may register some discrepancy in the size of their feet during or after pregnancy“, affirms Renne.
They may suffer from ligament laxitya condition in which the joints have a greater range of motion than normal, and the feet may end up differing in size if they naturally favor one side of the body in relation to the other. “Sometimes their bodies go back; other times not,” he says.
A series of birth conditions can lead to one foot being a significantly different size than the other. For example, “if we are born with a clubfootthe entire end is smaller than the opposite side”, explains to Live Science the Jacob Wynesassociate professor at the University of Maryland.
Some clinical conditions can also affect the different size of the feet, explains Wynes. This is the case of brachymetatarsia and from brachymetapodia, conditions in which one or more toes are shorter on a foot, respectively.
Also a condition known as digital hypoplasiain which the toes may be underdeveloped or incomplete, can influence the size of the feet. Injuries can also change the size of the footespecially during childhood when bones are still developing.
O wearing a cast on the foot for a prolonged period it can also cause muscles to weaken and shrink, points out Corrine Renne, who adds that differences in foot size can result from more frequent use one foot than the other, which can increase muscle mass and thicken the structure of the foot
This is what can happen, for example, with a ballet dancerRenne notes.
If the difference in foot or limb length is serious enoughcould it be surgical intervention required “if it affects the person’s ability to perform activities of daily living or if the pain is unbearable,” says Wynes.
Surgeries such as bone grafts or bone cuts can, respectively, lengthen or shorten the bone. “Normally, people can tolerate about 2 centimeters difference” from surgery, he said.
In most cases, having feet of different sizes It’s just a nuisance. If you simply want to find shoes that fit youthere are several options available.
One option is to buy a pair of shoes that matches the larger foot and use custom devicessuch as padding in the toes or heels “to make the shoes fit better and be more symmetrical,” explains Renne.
Another option is buy shoes in two different sizes: There are specialized shoe stores that only sell one shoe of each size.
