There are many parents worried about seeing that their children always go barefoot, that they take off their shoes, that they want to get in touch with the ground, that they have enough left over socks and that they go behind them, fast, to put back all the paraphernalia that prevents your little feet from touching the ground.
We do it because we do not want them to go cold, but by putting on shoes continuously we are preventing their feet from developing correctly. To show a button: in Kenya, children who win races are those who go barefoot.
Preventing a cold
As I say, I am aware that it is an act that responds to a need to prevent them from getting cold and cold, but I personally have not been able to relate the colds of my children with their going barefoot, so one day we decided that yes They wanted to go barefoot, let them go.
The incredible design of our feet
The anatomy books say that Our children's feet each have 26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 tendons, muscles and ligaments. An impressive design to give the foot an incredible mobility and adaptability that allows us to walk through winding terrain.
A wasted design. This summer we took a mountain excursion to a place where you should walk barefoot. It is a circuit prepared for it and although I had a good time because I love the mountain, I will think twice before returning, because I suffered the unspeakable. My little prince feet kept telling me that "with the custom we are going to be superprotected, get us out of here, animal!". Come on, that a lot of natural engineering, a lot of tendon and a lot of articulation, that my feet, and those of most, are wasted because we have left all the work to the shoes and shoes.
Our children ask us, by nature, for freedom or because they know it is good, that we don't put shoes on. But we insist and, little by little, we eventually teach them to get used to them. All this while your feet are losing the possibility of developing in an incredible way.
Kenyan children run more when they go barefoot
For a few months I dedicate part of the little free time I have to run. I am not the only one, now there are hundreds and thousands of popular runners that flood the cities and, like many others, one ends up realizing how difficult it is to be fast running and wondering how it is possible for Kenyans to win every race.
By chance I found a book that was short-lived, Running with the Kenyans, which explains the story of a Briton who took his family and his gear and for a while shared experiences, training and careers with the Kenyans.
In one of the passages of the book, the author explains that he was surprised to realize that the children who were running with slippers were always the last in the races. Apparently, children in Kenya go barefoot (not all, but many). They run to school to not be late and often the distances are quite wide, because there are not as many schools as here.
That "training" barefoot, those kilometers of children, the height in which they live, the lifestyle they lead, their diet, their determination and many other things are what make them the fastest. But when it comes to comparing each other, it seems that those who wear slippers feel they weigh on them, they don't know how to go with them, they don't articulate their feet well or you go to know the reason, but they lose the races.
The funny thing is that in those races, sponsored by shoe brands on many occasions, the winning children are given a pair of slippers, as if from that moment they could finally run better with those shoes they could never buy.
That barefoot running is one of the reasons that Kenyans (who go with sneakers as adults) run more, and that is why there are now, for us, shoes with less soles, with less drop (the difference in height between the heel and the tip) whose objective is to allow us to run less protected, with less cushioning, closer to the ground and thus, we acquire a style similar to the so-called "natural running", or what is the same, as the body is designed to run : barefoot and supporting the foot with the front and middle, and never with the heel first.
The problem is that we are late. When we want to copy them they already have muscularly developed feet, adapted to always go barefoot, with a strong arch and a structure that serves to propel faster at each step. We, on the other hand, have prince feet, with less bow, less strong and worse acclimatized when running and all that began when we were put on shoes, but boots, we took them off, they scolded us, they put them back on, and that Once with a double knot so that we never walk barefoot again.
PS: If you still fear for the cold, put them non-slip socks.
