According to a new study thousands of women need operations because of high heels. They cannot walk properly after wearing high heels for years. High heels eventually leave them down at the heel. Ultimately they walk to the podiatrist’s parade with bunions, corns, trapped nerves, bent toes and disfigured feet because of spindly stilettos and towering wedges. 

Shoe brand MBT sponsored the study. The survey of 1000 women aged 15 and above found half the women in Liverpool and Manchester wore heels for whole week. 43% women in the South-East of Britain also chose heels five days a week. Four in ten women have had an accident in their heels, with twisting ankles. MBT claims that one in three foot operations on women are to straighten the toes disfigured by mostly high heel shoes.
 
The cost of the operation like bunion and corn removal is 4,000 dollar and it add up to 13.8m dollar in a year. The surgery of toe straightening costs around 1,200 dollar and add up to 10.4m dollar a year. According to the study, 3.3m dollar in a year is spent on big toe joint replacement; 2m dollar is spent on removing trapped nerves and 200,000 dollar spent on correcting ingrowing toenails.  

NHS consultant podiatrist Emma Supple, who led the study said: “We need to mix and match our choice of footwear to allow our bodies time to recover. Heaven forbid that we banish high heels from our wardrobes but we want to balance out our heel wearing days, protect our bodies from future damage and avoid injuries.” 

The study advises that high heels puts pressure on nerves in the back and can cause sciatica. It can also do damage to the Achilles tendon. So, we should not wear the heel more than one and a half inches.