Why We Should Be Thankful for Our Feet
Can you believe Thanksgiving passed already? It seems like the last Thanksgiving was only one year ago! Don’t know about you, but for me time sure does fly when I’m saving lives, one toe at a time. Anyway, it’s a great time to reflect on the last year, and think about what we are thankful for, after digesting and shopping until our feet drop at the meshugenah Black Friday sales. I know what I’m thankful for, along with the obvious such as health, family, and of course my dear patients. I’m thankful for my feet, and this would seem to be a good time to inspire others to be thankful for theirs as well, warts and all. Check out these foot facts:
- The foot contains 28 bones (trust me I’ve counted them), 33 joints, 107 ligaments 19 muscles and 250,000 sweat glands (trust me I’ve smelled them).
- The average foot sweats the equivalent of a 12 ounce can of liquid per day.
- One quarter of all the bones in the body are contained in the feet.
- The average daily forces placed on the feet are equivalent in weight to a fully loaded cement truck (don’t know how much that is but it is presumably heavy.
- People average 8,000-10,000 steps per day, which adds up to 115,000 miles over a lifetime, or a trip around the Earth four times.
- Two feet on the same person are rarely even in size, and up to 96% of the population has a leg length discrepancy in which one leg is slightly longer than the other, and one foot is slightly bigger than the other (size your shoes for the bigger foot).
- The bestselling shoe sizes are 8.5 for women and 10.5 for men, and the record for largest shoe size is held by Robert Wadlow, the tallest man ever with a 37AA shoe. And you men with your minds in the gutter, for the record, no, the myth is not true, and yes, there is research to disprove it.
- Toenails grow at a rate of about 1mm per month and a full toenail grows in about 5-6 months, and the toenails can be a window onto general health, often manifesting signs of systemic disease.
Well kids, there you have it. Just something else to be thankful for in this season. Think about all that next time you open the newspaper or favorite webpage to read the bad news du jour. Just take a few steps and smile. And if you’re taking a few steps and wincing, I’m just a phone call or click away.