The Anthropology of Arch Supports

The Anthropology of Arch Supports

By Chris Loper

Long before I ever came to see Kandi Burke, podiatrists and orthopedists repeatedly told me I needed more arch support. Naively, I listened. Diligently, I obeyed.

I have very high arches, you see, and I was suffering from pain in the ball of my foot. Arch supports, the “experts” explained, would take some of the weight off of the front of my foot, providing relief. This made perfect sense to me.

So I went down the road of custom insoles and special shoes. I even wore rocker shoes at one point, which dramatically amplified the arch support my insoles were providing. My special footwear allowed me to barely put weight on the front of my foot if I wanted to, awkwardly walking on my heels and my arches.

But the awkwardness of the footwear isn’t why I turned to Kandi. I changed course because none of it worked.

When I first came to see Kandi, she taught me that the trouble with these all these support-mechanisms is that they interfere with the foot’s natural anatomy. Arch supports prevent the arch from doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to act like a spring, like a shock-absorber.

I was skeptical at first. The so-called experts had really instilled their dogma in me. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I thought about our ancestors, what they wore on their feet, and how their foot bones would have evolved.

The hominid ancestors of humans began walking upright perhaps seven million years ago, and certainly by three million years ago.¹ For the vast majority of that time, no footwear was used at all. And arch supports? They were used for none of that time.

And yet, walking barefoot was the hallmark of our hominid ancestors. It’s what separated them from their ape cousins. It’s what freed up our hands, allowing us to make, use, and carry tools to a degree never seen before.¹ We were good at walking barefoot. That was our thing.

And our bodies slowly changed to make us better walkers. Our skeletal structures evolved to support the many miles of walking we did daily. One of those skeletal structures was the arch. The arch had to become the foot’s shock-absorber.

And what do arch supports do? They lock that shock-absorber in place, so it has no give. The foot becomes rigid, and all the little bones in it take more impact with every step.

So I made the switch. I’d been in arch supports for so long that my feet had lost much of their strength, and my arches were stiff. By it’s all coming back, and I’m doing better than I ever did under the traditional foot care program pushed by podiatrists and orthopedists. If you’re not getting anywhere with insoles and special shoes, consider trying the ancestral foot care program instead.

Works Cited

¹ Zimmer, Carl. Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins. Harper Perennial, 2007.

About the Author

Chris Loper is an educator, writer, and coach. He specializes in helping people with behavioral change. Visit Becoming Better to learn more.