There’s something joyous about going barefoot. The feel of warm sand between your toes, the freshness of newly-mown grass under your soles, even the squelch of wet mud beneath your feet can hit you with an unbridled feeling of freedom. It’s no wonder children are often the first to ditch their shoes at the first glimpse of summer.
And, much as you may wince when they clamber unshod over rocks and moan as you mop up more muddy prints traipsed in from the garden, the science is stacking up to reveal tons of good reasons to let children kick off their Crocs.
‘Being barefoot is the way nature intended and the most appropriate footwear, most of the time, is your own bare feet,’ says podiatrist and barefoot enthusiast, Stephen Bloor. ‘Being barefoot gives our feet optimal neural feedback from skin contact with the ground. It gives our brains more information for optimising balance and posture. Muscle activity in our feet, legs and backs are better coordinated. Joint movements in our lower limbs are enhanced.’
Bloor believes all of us, and children especially, should go barefoot whenever we can. We have up to 200,000 nerve endings in each foot, primed to feel the textures, temperature and safe placement of the feet. Setting feet free’ wakes up’ these nerve endings, improving balance and proprioception (awareness of where we are in relation to the space around us).
Any material that comes between the nerves of our skin and the ground reduces the quantity and quality of sensory neural feedback. Could footwear have a detrimental effect on the development of children’s nervous systems?
‘Our brains develop neural pathways during the early years of life and this includes the neural pathways from our feet to our brains,’ explains Bloor. ‘The connections need to be made during a time when the brain is plastic.’
Boosting balance
As well as optimising neural feedback, going barefoot when you’re young might also help to develop motor skills such as jumping and balancing. Researchers discovered that children who grew up habitually barefoot in South Africa were able to jump further, balance better and were more agile, than their shoe-wearing peers in Germany.
‘For most of the outcomes, the barefoot group was better – they were better at jumping, agility and balancing,’ explains Professor Karsten Hollander, professor for sports medicine at the Medical School, Hamburg. ‘However in sprinting, the shod children were better than the barefoot group. This was a surprising finding because normally being able to jump far correlates with being able to run faster, but here that wasn’t the case, possibly because there is not a culture of running in South Africa.’
Being mostly barefoot was also found to benefit the foot arch and improve the function of the foot.
Shed the shoes after school
So how often should children go barefoot to see benefits? The good news is, not as often as you might think.
‘We found that people got the benefits when walking barefoot for at least a third of the time,’ says Hollander. ‘We don’t need to be barefoot all of the time to get benefits such as a higher arch, stronger muscles and better foot functionality. It might be sufficient to just go barefoot at home, in the garden and in your leisure time.’
Thankfully, barefoot opportunities abound in the summer. Beaches are the perfect place to flip off the flip-flops, back gardens don’t need shoes and even cobbled streets can elicit a sensory smile. My three children and I still delight in the holiday memory of walking barefoot through Dubrovnik’s old town on the deliciously-smooth, sun-warmed cobbles once the sun set.
Barefoot walking trails are another fun way to build in more barefoot time for children and treat their feet. First established in Austria and Germany as a way to make people more aware of their natural surroundings, barefoot walks are growing in popularity in the UK (see below). These paths of natural materials combine different textures – from smooth cobbles and warm grass to sharp rocks and cold mud (don’t worry, foot showers are often provided!).
Embrace the dirt
To get the benefits of going barefoot, children need to pad across natural textures and terrain and grubby feet are inevitable.
But getting dirty is good for them. When skin, whether on the hands or feet, is in direct contact with the earth, we pick up microbes that can boost the immune system and mood. Exposure to Mycobacterium vaccae, a type of bacterium that lives in soil has been shown by scientists at the University of Bristol to raise levels of the brain’s happy chemical, serotonin.
Still worried they might step on something sharp?
‘The scientific, clinical and observational evidence from around the world over the last 100 years has clearly shown our feet are far more likely to be injured by shoes (any shoes) than barefoot,’ assuages Bloor.
‘The skin on our feet and palms is uniquely capable of reinforcing itself into several millimetres thick tough layers which can withstand most rough surfaces and sharp objects. It is 600 per cent more abrasion-resistant than the skin of our thighs.’
We also have the natural protection of our nervous system. Those thousands of nerve endings in each foot are primed to feel the textures and temperatures and react accordingly. ‘The fact that we are barefoot is also a motivator for more careful foot placement in itself,’ reassures Bloor. ‘We automatically become much more aware of our surroundings. Subconsciously we look ahead to plan our foot placements so as to avoid animal poop and dangerous objects.’
Just keep tetanus immunisations up to date, just in case!
Keep kids’ shoes minimal
Once the British weather kicks in this autumn and it gets too cold for bare feet, it’s worth considering investing in a pair of minimalist shoes that mimic the barefoot experience. These shoes are able to mimic barefoot biomechanics.
‘There are four factors of the shoe to consider,’ advises Hollander. ‘They should be lightweight, flexible and with minimal cushioning. Shoes with stability (cushioning which affects pronation) should be avoided, especially in children.’
Basically, the less structure the better. Look for thin, pliable soles and as little structure as possible. There are a few brands offering barefoot shoes for kids. Toddlers and younger children have lots of options for minimal shoes – take a look at Happy Little Soles for plenty of options. But for slightly older kids wanting a barefoot shoe designed for action and adventure outdoors, we rate three brands.
The first is newcomer Skinners, an ultra-portable, lightweight sock shoe. Our kids love these, largely because they are so easy to wear – let’s face it, who doesn’t love knocking about in a pair of socks? Skinners feel like a sock to pull on, but have a supportive insole for extra comfort and a polymer sole that my kids say feels like having your own mini athletics track under your feet. Brilliant for hiking, clambering about on rocks and general bombing about in every kind of terrain, children just seem so much more active when they wear them. And, if you have a big family, they are brilliant for travelling with because they squish down really small and take up so little space.
The other two barefoot brands we recommend are the stylish offerings from VivoBarefoot and the distinctive foot-shaped Vibram Fivefingers. Vibram’s Fivefingers KSO EVO are great for sporty kids and have the added bonus of working equally well in water. The ideal combination of ground feedback and protection, they let kids (and adults) have the free feeling of being barefoot but with added grip and flexibility. Our one gripe is that younger kids can take a while to get them on (each toe needs to be coaxed in one by one), so they aren’t a quick option. But once they’re on, they won’t want to take them off!
Where to walk barefoot
If you need inspiration for beautiful barefoot walks, take a look at the National Trust’s list of the top spots.
For a shorter barefoot experience, try the 300m Barefoot Trail at GreenWood Forest Park in Wales, the trail at Godolphin House, Cornwall or the Barefoot Walk at the Wild Place Project in Bristol. In the Midlands, kick off your shoes on the Barefoot Walk at Trentham Gardens or the barefoot trail at Conkers, Derbyshire. In the capital, try the Barefoot Trail at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
How to go barefoot
Start slow Feet that are used to being shod need time to strengthen. Start by going barefoot at home and in the garden.
Adjust your stride The cushioning effect of shoes means most people have an unnaturally hard heel strike that punishes all the major joints. When you take your shoes off, keep your strides shorter and think of landing softly to lessen the impact through the body.
Work your core Just as you protect your body from injury by training your deeper core muscles, it’s also wise to train the core muscles of the foot, according to research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Try things like picking up a towel with your toes and lifting each toe up individually.
Build up to barefoot Minimalist ‘barefoot’ shoes are great for kids and adults alike, but you need to build up to wearing them slowly. Start off by only wearing them at home for a short time each day, before slowly building up to longer walks and full-time wear.
Build your own barefoot walk
Kids can have great fun working together to create a temporary barefoot trail in the garden, on the beach or in the woods. Start by collecting sticks to edge the path and divide each section. Then encourage your children to hunt for different materials to create an assortment of textures within the path. Grasses, pebbles, leaves, bark, seaweed or logs – whatever is at hand. If you’re at home or on the beach, putting out a tub of water (or filling a hole in the sand with seawater) makes a refreshing addition to a barefoot trail.
Want a more permanent path? Edge your path with bricks, stones or logs and think about textures that will stay put. Pebbles, bark, logs and sand (although you may need to cover it up overnight if cats visit your garden) are all good options.
Check with a doctor before you go barefoot if you have diabetes or are immunosuppressed (eg having cancer treatment) as some podiatrists don’t recommend it.
