A comparative study of foot dimension between adult male and female and evaluation of foot hazards due to using of footwear

Using footwear often becomes troublesome and creates many problems. Most of these problems are associated with the wearing of ill-fitting footwear, as it leads to biomechanical imbalance and ultimately give rise to different foot problems. In the present investigation different foot problems, viz., discomfort, pain and other hazards related to the use of footwear have been evaluated and attempts have been made to study different foot dimensions of men and women that are related to the design of footwear. For the present study different foot dimensions of both right and left feet of the subjects were measured on 300 Bengalee (Indian) subjects having the age range of 20-35 years. The subjects reported that they had got discomfort, pain, blister and corn due to using different footwear. It was noted that the occurrence of these problems in right foot was greater than that in left foot. There was no significant correlation between foot troubles and type of footwear. Results also showed that there was no significant difference in most of the foot dimensions between left foot and right foot. However, significant difference (P < 0.001) in all foot dimensions was observed between male and female subjects. Correlation coefficient among different foot dimensions has also been evaluated and it was noted that foot length was highly correlated with stature and foot volume, particularly in left foot. Footwear should be made according to the foot dimensions of the user population. The database collected from the Bengalee (Indian) population may be a helpful guide for manufacturing different footwear.