Parents often worry about their children’s teeth, diet, and eyes yet pay little attention to feet.  Correct care of little feet will have an impact on your child’s feet for life.  Ill-fitting shoes can lead to numerous health, mobility and well-being issues into adulthood.

The early months and years of your child's life are a critical time for supporting growing bones and joints. Your baby's feet will grow faster in the first three years than at any other time in their life.

During these formative years your childs foot is extremely fragile and the importance of fitting your child with the appropriate footwear cannot be overstated. The delicate nature of your childs foot necessitates a supportive shoe that fits well and encourages healthy foot development. Footwear designed specifically for your child is more critical in these early years than at any other time in their life.

Feet are designed to take body weight and give us mobility, so it is vital to pay them attention and ensure that feet are fit for life. The best way to do that is by starting off on the right foot – properly designed and fitted shoes at the outset when children start to wear shoes.

There are 26 bones in the foot, and they do not complete growing until around the age of 18!  Shoe fitters and podiatrists spend the majority of their time trying to correct damage and ease discomfort which could have been avoided if shoes had been correctly fitted when purchased.

Childrens feet are at serious risk because they are often contained in an environment that restricts their growing feet. Children are born with relatively soft and flexible cartilage which gradually converts to bone with age. As they are growing, their feet are vulnerable to injury and deformity due to ill-fitting footwear.

Maintaining and caring for a child’s feet will benefit their health, mobility and well-being throughout their entire life, so it’s crucially important for parents to make the health of children’s feet and what types of shoes they wear a priority.