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Do the feet of German and Australian children differ in structure? Implications for children's shoe design.
Mauch M, Mickle KJ, Munro BJ, Dowling AM, Grau S, Steele JR. Ergonomics. 2008 Apr;51(4):527-39.
Quote:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were any significant differences in the morphology of the feet of children living on two different continents. The shape and dimensions of the feet of 86 preschool and 419 primary school children from Australia, matched to the same number of German children for age, gender, height and BMI, were compared. The German children display significantly longer and flatter feet relative to their Australian counterparts, whereas the Australian children reveal a significantly smaller ball angle, implying that the forefoot of the Australian children is squarer in shape. These findings imply that footwear must be designed to cater to the unique foot dimensions of children in different continents to ensure that shoe shape matches foot shape. Most footwear companies do not vary the dimensions of their shoe lasts to accommodate intercontinental differences in foot morphology based on racial and/or environmental factors. The results of this study will have immediate implications for the design of comfortable footwear suitable for the developing feet of children.
Re: Differences in foot shapes between German and Australian children
netizens
I do have some problems with this study. The ethnic make up of both population samples does need further clarification before the authors' can begin to generalise there findings. Neither German nor Australian populations are ethnically homogenous, time was this might have been taken as a constant but movement of people across continents would serious question comparisons of this type, now.
Re: Differences in foot shapes between German and Australian children
Define "Australian" most of us are migrants or the descendants of, l am told mine came out in 1857.
As footwear manufacturing becomes more of a globalized product l cant see them making different shoe shapes for each country, its hard enough to find width fittings and true half sizes for children as it is, lucky for me we still make them
Re: Differences in foot shapes between German and Australian children
The ski industry does make different lasts particularly for Japan. We used to buy different shapes having some idea of what likely background was going to fit. The AngloBritish white Aussie often has a broad forefoot high instep and fairly low volume heel/calcaneus. The Germanic foot is similar but usually higher volume in the heel, French seemed long, low and narrow, Southern and Northern Italian (more Germanic genes I think) different by size and width. The Australian army started scanning feet in Aus many years ago to try to design military boots that would fit more people with less damage to their feet. I got out of that industry and am no longer in touch with the people who were doing it. Obviously foot typing is an effort to provide last shapes that are going to fit good numbers of people in any given population, there is always variation so no system is going to be right every time....it's statistics....there are always outlyers.....
regards Phill
Re: Differences in foot shapes between German and Australian children
It would be interesting to see what info/reseach the bigger brands such as asics, nike etc base their lasts on? and wheather or not they use different lasts for different countries?..
....i tried asking a rep from a certain brand this once and all they could manage was a change of topic:P
Re: Differences in foot shapes between German and Australian children
l can tell you Kumfs the ladies comfort brand is now sold in America, Australia
, New zealand and China and they are all made on the same lasts, the only saving grace would be they come in multiple width fittings, the question being do different width fittings sell at different ratios in different countries?
l would imagine this would hold true to a country like China where most of the population is indigenous but not for a country like Australia where most are migrants from around the world and of "mixed blood" if you will.
An Asians shape and size foot is very different to that of an Islander
Differences in foot shapes between German and Australian children
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