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We stop growing in height in our teens to early 20s, but our feet usually keep growing. Even in a single day, our foot size fluctuates – expanding as much as a half size – according to the Royal College of Podiatry.
And it is not just our individual foot size. There’s been a major shift over the last century in our collective feet size.
If you’re wondering why your feet feel bigger than they used to, you’re not alone.Credit: iStock
Have you, like me, ever held up a pair of your grandmother’s old shoes and wondered, “How on earth are my feet so much larger?” Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. Historians have noted that in 1900, the average man in North America wore a size 6.5 shoe and the average woman wore a size 4.5 shoe.
Our expanding footprint probably reflects a few generational changes. We weigh more because of the obesity epidemic, and we are taller, partly because of improved childhood nutrition, which can accelerate foot growth during adolescence.
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The effect of weight gain on foot size may be reversible: a 2017 Turkish study found that male and female patients who had a sleeve gastrectomy for obesity had a decrease in shoe size sustained a year after their surgeries.
In individuals, age alone is enough to increase shoe size – literally bearing the weight of our whole bodies year after year causes our feet to slowly flatten and widen. One study of 200 male veterans found that almost half experienced an increase of at least one shoe size in their adulthood – mainly between ages 45 and 60. That change remained significant even after controlling for the effect of changes in weight.
Why our feet get bigger as we age
Other factors also influence our foot size over our lifetimes. Many are no cause for alarm, but some should be discussed promptly with a physician.
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