Two out of three children ‘wearing shoes too small’ because parents guess

TWO in three children are squeezing their feet into shoes up to two sizes too small because their parents guess wrongly, new research reveals.

Experts say parents are still using old fashioned but ineffective shoe shop habits such as squeezing the end of a shoe to see if there’s ‘room to grow’.

They asked more than 2,000 parents to tell them what size feet they thought their children but then took accurate measurements themselves to find 65 per cent of the youngsters were in shoes that were too small.

This included 47 per cent wearing footwear one size too small but 18 per cent wearing shoes two sizes too small, said the survey conducted by education research group Blitzresults.

Shoes which are too tight can lead to a painful deformity called hallux valgus where the big toe angles inward and which is believed to affect around 30 per cent of children in the UK.

Parents are still relying on traditional age-old habits when buying for their primary school age sons and daughters.

ROOM TO GROW

This includes holding a shoe up to the bottom of a child’s foot to see if it is the right size which is a poor guide simply because seams, lining and other internal features mean the inside could be a completely different shape to the outside, said Blitzresults.

Pressing the end of the shoe to see if there’s ‘room to grow’ is ineffective as the action itself causes many children to draw their toes up as a reflex.

Some parents draw round a child’s foot onto a piece of paper and take that in to a shoe shop but, as a comparison, this is also imprecise not least of all because most children have one foot slightly longer than the other.

And even asking a son or daughter ‘how does it feel’ may not be the best way to find out either because children do not have fully developed nerves in their feet and so may not feel any discomfort if a shoe is too small, said Blitzresults’ expert Tim Lilling.

The simplest solution is to get a proper measurement. Parents should not rely on their own judgement nor that of their children, he said.

They should also buy a pair based on the measurement of the longer foot and not rely on the printed shoe size as there is no mandatory industry standard so will vary considerably from one size to another.

Other advice is to always leave at least half an inch of extra room in a shoe so that children can roll their feet properly when walking, said Tim Lilling.

He added: “Because the sense of touch isn’t fully developed in children yet, they have a tendency to squeeze their feet into shoes that are much too small, they don’t even notice it.