Why are People's Feet getting so big??

[truedelphi]

That's my query for today.

When my son was conceived my feet were a modest 6 and a half and his dad's were a ten.

My son is now in his early thirties and his feet are a whooping size thirteen! (He is about six feet tall and about 155/160 lbs.)

But even worse are the feet of children of friends of mine. One friend has a daughter age fourteen and her feet are a 12 and a half. She is only 5 feet seven.

What am I not getting about this? Didn't Darwin say somethin' about function and evolution and survival. It's harder for my son to survive as he has to spend so much time looking for shoes that fit (Without those, you know - no shirt, no shoes, no service)

Please tell me what is going on here...

[AllegroRondo]

1. big feet run in my family

I wear a 13, so do 2 of my brothers. My dad wore a 12.
my daughter wears an 11, and she's only 13.

[Ptah]

3. Big feet walk in my family

We're lazy that way.

[av8rdave]

2. I have fairly large feet as well...size 12

My dad is a 14, my son is a 13. I think it just runs in the family.

[AllegroRondo]

4. and you know what they say about big feet.....

... big shoes.

[Throwing Stones]

8. maybe all those male enhancement products are having a unintented consequence?

[LynneSin]

5. I don't understand why shoe manufacturers discriminate with the larger foot

I've been size 11 since like 5th grade back when I was like 5'10 and perhaps around 110lbs.

Yet when I go to the department stores - I rarely find anything with size 11 or if size 11 exists they look like ugly granny shoes. Thank goodness for DSW I'm able to find some stylish looking shoes.

BTW - size 11 feet does NOT necessarily mean you're some grotesque oversized blimp. Paris Hilton has size 11 feet. You'd think the shoe people would get the hint that they need to expand to larger sizes. I find it ironic that when you go to a shoe clearance rack the shelves are overloaded with size 7-9, but once you get to size 10, the numbers start dropping off and goes down exponentially from there.

[realisticphish]

6. HELL YES

I wear size 15W. I've been alternating between two styles of shoes for years, because payless only makes 2 I like, and I can't afford the other brands.

[Smooth Operator]

7. our feet are getting bigger and we're getting shorter

we're becoming Hobbits.

[grace0418]

12. Try having size 10.5W feet. Zappos.com is the only place where I can find shoes.

And I'm 5'4". It's depressing.

[Rob H.]

9. I'm beginning to wonder if shoe manufacturers' labels are accurate

I went looking for shoes last night and all of them in my usual size were painfully tight and I had to go up half a size to find ones that fit. I'm 38, so I'm pretty sure my feet aren't still growing.

I wear size tens and am 6 feet tall; one of my cousins is married to a guy who's 5'6" and he wears a size 12!

[grace0418]

15. My brother said that his feet got bigger in his late thirties. The doctor told him

that your arch flattens out with age and gravity, causing your foot to get a little bigger. Especially if you run or otherwise exercise a fair amount.

[Rob H.]

17. Okay, now *that* makes sense

My feet are almost flat to begin with--good to know that if they get bigger because they're flattening more, at least they'll only get a little bigger. ;)

[grace0418]

18. My whole family has super flat Fred Flintstone feet. Apparently, even if your feet are

flat you still have some arch and it can still flatten out. But yeah, not as much! I guess that's one positive to having flat feet. :)

[AlCzervik]

20. thats me, my husband calls my feet "Flippers" and he's about right.

after 20 years that still cracks me up.

[supernova]

28. I'll buy that

I'm 5' 1" and from my teens to about my late 30s I bought 5 1/2 and 6s, depending on the brand. I usually bought medium widths. Now, I have to buy 6 1/2 Ws. I don't bother looking for pointy toed shoes. Too painful. And some sandals, 7s are better.

edit: My mother, OTOH, wore a size 9 1/2 or 10 and was glad in her later years to be able to mail order more stylish shoes. She had to wear her share of sensible shoes throughout her life.

[Dora]

21. Your feet can still grow - even at your age.

I've twice had to go up a half size since my feet "stopped" growing 20 years ago.

[rug]

10. Because their asses weigh a lot more.

[KitchenWitch]

11. I actually think - like with women's clothing - the sizes are actually getting smaller.

at a women's 12, sometimes 12.5, it is getting damned impossible to find shoes.

My feet have not grown for years, yet, a few years ago I fit into a mens 10.5, now I am in a mens 11 or 11.5.

:banghead:

[underpants]

13. Gee wonder why guys might think that they want BIG FEET...hmmm

Gee I wonder what that could mean... hmmm :think:

I have noticed this in the last 10 years or so. Shoe companies HAVE made sizes more standard (Nike and Adidas used to be all over the place).

My shoe size (says loudly) JUST MY SHOE SIZE MIND YOU has gone down since I have lost weight. My old running shoes (Asics) were 14's now I buy 13's and there is still enough room for the toes to move around (very important).

[KitchenWitch]

16. Yeah, but women do not necessarily want to have big feet!

[Connonym]

14. No kidding!

My ex wears 11's, I'm a 6-7 depending on the shoe but my 14 year old daughter (who is only 5'5") wears a size 13. We've had great luck finding her shoes on clearance. There's not a huge variety but I got her a pair of fleece lined Ug shoes for under $20. Also, fortunately, she loves to wear Vans and Converse so men's shoes work well.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Check your (& dad's) ancestry.

There's a "bigfoot" in there somewhere. Sasquatch.

:rofl: :hi:

[hedgehog]

22. I can remember this problem from back when my oldest son was 2 years old

and his feet were too big for size four socks which meant he couldn't wear his heart's desire: little knit socks with trains and trucks on them. The only socks that fit him were plain brown, black or white.

[hedgehog]

23. Can we start a sub-thread about the way shoes are shaped?

By the time I get a shoe that fits acrtoss the ball of my foot, the heel is so loose that I step right out of it. I am firmly convinced that foot size and shape is as much an ethnic feature as hair color and texture. I tell my children that their Irisah family memebers all have big wide feet because it helped keep us from sinking into the bogs! Crossing high arched Irish feet with my husband's low arched German feet has resulted in some spectacular hybrid feet among my children. One child has webbed toes from my Silkie great-great- great grandmother, but that's another story.

[truedelphi]

24. I'm all in favor of sub threads but need to know

What is a Silkie Granma? (I grew up in an Irish neighborhood but don't think I ever heard the word Silkie as you used it)

[hedgehog]

25. The Silkies (or Selkies) are a sort of Irish mermaid. Normally,

they live in the ocean as seals, but can shed their skins and appear as humans. One of the Sheas found the seal skin of a Silkie woman and hid it. She married him, and they had a family. She always longed for the sea, and one day, while he was away, one of the children found the seal skin where he had hidden it away. The Silkie woman donned her skin and returned to the sea. The webbed toes that run in my family are a gift from her.

[truedelphi]

26. So does even the hedgehog side of the family have webbed feet?

[hedgehog]

27. My feet aren't webbed, but my sister's and one of my daughters'

are. When the Junior High Home Ec teacher decided that drawing up a family tree was an appropriate assignment, I dare say my child handed in the the most unique one.

[mulsh]

29. shoes sizes are not accurate

at various times in their life's my dad and my grandfather sold shoes. Both of them always insisted us kids get our feet measured before we try on shoes. shoe sizes vary a bit from maker to maker. Feet sizes also vary from left to right. Both men had amusing stories of people with very large feet insisting they "normally take a size 9" when they obviously take a size 11. Very few shoe sales people seem to know how to measure feet these days, at least here in the Bay Area.

My feet grew between the age of 35 & 45., from 10 1/2 D to 11/11 1/2 EE. I recently gave away a bunch of barely worn dress shoes to a friend with size2 10 d feet. the Bass shoes fit fine but the Johnston & Murphys were a bit tight.

[Left Is Write]

30. I didn't know they were.

I'm a size 6-1/2 to 7 (as much as 7-1/2 in boots).

My 20-year-old daughter is a size 8.

My 7-year-old daughter is a little girl's size 13 (her feet were big at birth, but she grew into them).

My 5-year-old son is a little boy's size 12.

My husband is a size 10 to 10-1/2.

[Withywindle]

31. My feet are getting *SMALLER*

Either that or vanity sizing is getting out of hand. Gee, which do you think is more likely?

When I was a teenager, most of my shoes were size 7 and a half. Now, the size that fits me most is...6.

[Maddy McCall]

32. My son is 13 and has a size 13 foot. He's barely started puberty.

Gawd help me when I have to find size 16 shoes for him.

:scared: