Why Kids Should Be Barefoot More (and What to Know About Barefoot Shoes) with Andy Bryant | Ep. 140

0:00It's a primary sensory indicator for the rest of our body. Our feet are meant to match the rest of our senses. And we all know about all these other senses and are doing all these wonderful things to stimulate them, but we're deadening or blindfolding the soles of our feet. And our soles of our feet should be matching what all the other senses are telling us about our environment.

0:19Learning To Mom:So like when we restrict our children from experiencing those nerve endings, think about what we're doing to their brains or not allowing their brains to experience. crazy. Hi, mom friend. I'm Layla, the host of the learning to mom podcast. Thanks so much for being here. We're going to be great mom friends. I know it. This is the podcast where you get your first time mom questions answered here on the learning to mom podcast. We discuss the challenges of motherhood, but don't just stop there complaining about it here. You'll be encouraged and supported to overcome the hard with the right tools while finding that motherhood is full of joy, fun, and peace.

1:00Learning To Mom:So buckle in while we learn what those are from these experts. I'm so glad to have you here. Let's learn together. Each expert guest comes with their own perspective and background. So please note that the content presented in this podcast is designed for general educational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalized professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Hi, Andy. Welcome to the Learning to mom podcast. Hi, Layla. Thanks for having me. I'm stoked for this conversation. It's one that I'm very, very passionate about, honestly, because of you. But before we get into today's topic, can you just go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners and maybe also share a little bit about your origin story, if you will, on like why you got interested in true foot support or like being barefoot or whatever.

1:54Yeah. Or natural, maybe natural foot function is what I'd call it. Anyway. So I'm Andy, I'm a podiatrist here in Melbourne, Australia. So I've been a practicing podiatrist for 25 years. And for the first 17 or 18 years, I was just doing the normal thing, which is supporting feet and just what normal podiatrists do. Although in Australia, we're different to the States. The podiatrists are more like physical therapists. We're not, we don't have a surgical element. And so we're more likely to give you orthotics and look after ingrown toenail and things like that. Anyway, I had a life-changing series of bicycle accidents that meant that I couldn't ride my bike anymore.

2:34And so I went to a yoga class just to do some exercise. So then I noticed my feet getting stronger through yoga. And I thought, why aren't aren't I doing this for my clients? Because at uni, we were told that you can't actually do many exercises for them. And so I learned through yoga to start with, and then through my own research, how to strengthen feet. And that's what I do with my clients now. So I left the practice I was in, it was a big practice with a business partner and just went solo. And now I just do work with a group called the Foot Collective, who are online foot health organization.

3:08And so, yeah, that's how I came about it through yoga initially and then just practicing on myself and then doing a whole lot of research on how to strengthen feet and how feet should move.

3:22Learning To Mom:So then when we talk about like natural, what did you say at the beginning? Natural foot function. Natural foot function. Because the foot is perfectly designed to look after itself. It's not like it was tapped on as an afterthought at the end of being designed or evolved. It's part of how we're meant to move. And so there is such a thing as natural foot function. And our modern life takes us away from that with modern shoes, modern surfaces, and movement patterns, modern movement patterns. Yeah. So natural foot function. Yeah. That just like perfectly lines up for today's conversation, right?

4:00Learning To Mom:Because this is for children, 12 months to 24 months. So they're just starting to walk. It's the first time that they're being maybe put into any shoes. So let's talk about like why it's really important to take this seriously rather than just like, oh, I'll buy whatever shoe from wherever. I think starting off with children's feet in the right environment is like the key to their long-term foot health. And if you look around, there's a podiatrist on every corner. It's a very popular thing. There's a lot of podiatrists around because there's a lot of foot dysfunction and a lot of foot pain. And they're never really fixing the problem.

4:44They're just band-aiding it a lot. And so if we go back to what I think causes a lot of foot issues, it's when we're putting feet in an environment that is not conducive to them growing properly and developing properly. And so here in Australia, it may be a little different over there. We have what's called a maternal child healthcare nurse. And this is someone that you go to see maybe at the start every week. And then by the time the child is one to two years old, maybe you're going every month and you're weighing and measuring and making sure they're hitting their milestones and things like this.

5:17And so when a child starts walking here in Australia, it's a known fact that the shoe that they should be walking in, this is like a first walker, is very flat. It's flexible. It's thin. And the reasoning behind that is because that helps with their foot development. It helps with their spatial awareness for their whole body and helps with their balance. When we put that toddler's foot in a shoe that lets them feel the ground, that lets the foot move, all these things, it's wide enough, all those things, it's known and it's across the board known, whether you see a pediatrician or this maternal healthcare nurse, or you're just your local doctor, they will all say that that new walker should be in a shoe like that for all those wonderful reasons.

6:03Like we can go through them again, strength, balance, development, all these amazing reasons. This is the core of what we need to talk about today. That is across the board thing to do for new walkers. They need to be in a shoe that just lets their foot be as if it was barefoot. But if they're in an environment that's going to hurt their foot, they need some protection against sharp, hot and cold. So hot surfaces, cold surfaces and sharp surfaces to protect their skin. Otherwise the shoe should be doing nothing to support them or aid their function. It should just be letting their foot be a foot.

6:36And so the big mismatch is when that child turns two or three and you go down to any, in Australia here we have kindergartens and they're all in their little Nikes and Brooks and their Assics, their little baby built-up shoes. And their little baby built-up shoes are cushioned, they're healed, they're stiff, and it's almost like the advice suddenly changes. Suddenly, that foot's developed and doesn't need to tick all those boxes for strength, movement, balance, all those things. Suddenly, it needs support. We suddenly write the foot off as though it can't look after itself anymore. So the message for new walkers is great, but the next message is the problem often.

7:15But then we still see kids in their little Nikes that, um, uh, you know, their first walkers and, and they've got cushioned heeled shoes on, which is so wrong for feet.

7:27Learning To Mom:See, that's what we see in the U S from day one. Okay. Like is the, the shoes that you were describing for kindergartners and once they turn three or whatever, that's what we like automatically put our kids in is as soon as they start walking there, they're put into those shoes. Yes. I mean, but it's not like the doctor does that that's just like because that's what the norm is that's what the instagram influencers are doing and that's what's trendy and so everyone wants their kids to look cute and so it's like yeah nike high tops all around or whatever or huge cushion tennis shoes or little burks that aren't supportive either yeah and when we say supportive when it comes to a shoe like that it should be supportive of natural function not supportive of the foot the foot doesn't need any support.

8:13And so this is where we've gone wrong because we think the foot needs support, but it doesn't. It's like I'm saying that their backs need support. So we should put a little brace on them so that they can develop properly. It doesn't make any sense to develop the growing human foot. And in fact, when the foot is that young, so one to two years of age, say, it's still mostly cartilage and not a lot of bone. And so the muscles where they're attaching to this sort of cartilaginous mess. It could be seen as a mess, but it's going to become bone and become a full foot. Where all that's happening, the bones are getting stronger where muscles are pulling against them.

8:52If you support a foot at that age, then you're stopping the correct development of the bones and of the muscles and the way they're meant to work. You want the strain and the stress of a foot moving to properly develop the foot. It's more likely to have a better long-term function if it's properly strained and stressed under those low loads of being a toddler walking around. Even kids at that age, they nearly all have a flat foot, no arch. And, you know, I see a lot of parents that are freaking out because their babies, pretty much their babies have no arches in their foot. And then we're talking about the arch on the inside of the foot.

9:32And that's how it's meant to be. It's allowed to develop as it should, then it doesn't have the issues later on and shouldn't need support later on either. And so many children were put into orthotics and insoles because of a low arch and were meant to have low arches at that age. So it just kind of drives me crazy. They're just like a mess of loose bones and cartilage and they're meant to be flat on the ground because then there's more surface area on the ground so that their brain gets more feedback from their environment because they're getting all this skin contact or maybe if there's a shoe on a very thin shoe that still let them feel some things in the ground they're getting all this feedback into their nervous system through this broad area that is a foot without an arch they've got a massive head at that age compared to the rest of their bodies and so they've got a broad stance that puts their feet out so that they can stay upright and having a big flat foot is super supportive for this big head.

10:37And so when we see parents worrying about flat feet and then going to see a practitioner and say, oh, they need arch support at this age, it's just like the totally wrong thing to do or a shoe with support because it stops the development. It's basically putting a blindfold over those critical ways for the foot and the musculoskeletal system to develop. One of the most common questions I get is what pregnancy or nursing safe skincare and

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12:36Learning To Mom:And of course that is in the show notes below for you. So I want to rewind to something that you barely touched on there about the surface area in your feet, touching the ground and going up into your brain stimulation activity. I will say, Andy, that is the thing that absolutely blew my mind when I heard you talking about the nerve endings on the bottom of our feet. No one else had ever told me that before until I heard you on another episode. So can we dive into the number of nerve endings on the bottom of your feet and how that impacts your brain and all that? Yeah, I think it's like 200 ,000, but it's a big part of our sensory system.

13:17along with our lips, our genitals, our hands, and the soles of our feet. So it's a primary sensory indicator for the rest of our body. And maybe this is what you heard me talk about. There's a doctor named Olivia Leslie. She explained this to me. Someone is walking along the beach and they can smell the salt. They can feel the sun on their skin. They can hear the waves. They can see that they're on a beach. Everything about everything in their senses is telling them that they're on a beach and they're wearing a pair of thick shoes. And so their brain's like, okay, all of my other senses are telling me about my environment and I'm on a beach.

13:58Now, what's going to fit the picture when they're feeling nothing through their feet? Their feet are meant to match in with that picture. And when they're not getting any feeling with that picture, any feeling through that sense that's meant to match the rest of the picture, then your body goes, your nervous system is worried because it's not a match. It's starting to tense. She puts this down to why so many people have lower back pain, because there's always this tension. Because whenever we're walking, I mean, that's a really obvious one when you're on a beach. But even if I was walking on a hard concrete surface to go and get a coffee, and my brain is telling me, because all my other senses are, that I should be feeling hard ground, but I'm on a cushy.

14:38If I was on a cushy shoe, my brain's going to get confused and then have to go into protection mode. And that protection mode is when we see some neural tension and some issues like that. Our feet are meant to match the rest of our senses. And we all know about all these other senses and are doing all these wonderful things to stimulate them or whatever. But we're deadening or blindfolding the soles of our feet. And our soles of our feet should be matching whatever and what all the other senses are telling us about our environment. And so if you are on a hard concrete surface and in a very thin shoe that doesn't give you any cushioning and your brain knows about it because it can see that it's a hard concrete surface, it can feel it.

15:15You'll change the way you walk so that you interact with that hard surface in a way, and this is subconsciously, in a way that doesn't hurt. You won't, a shoe like that won't let you slam your heel into the ground. It will make you land softly, maybe push off more powerfully because it knows you've got something firm under you. And so your body computes this. And it doesn't happen just like that when you put a pair of thin sole shoes on. It takes practice and your body has to recalibrate because if from when you were one, you were in a shoe that was cushioned, you've never, you've always missed out on this ability to match those senses.

15:56And so we're talking to people today that are putting their kids in shoes. So it's so important to start off on the right track. But for the parents there that are listening to this, if you go into a thin-soled shoe and walk on concrete, your brain is going to be like, oh, there's a lot of information coming at me and it's probably not going to be able to be as efficient to start with. So that transition has to be very gentle. But for kids, you don't need to transition. They are still wired, as we all should be, but they are still freshly wired to get their feet doing the right thing with the rest of their body.

16:33Learning To Mom:does that make sense no it does and that's actually not what i remembered from your episode hearing i mean so i loved hearing that what i remember you talking about was just that there is more nerve endings on the bottom of your feet than anywhere else in your body yeah yeah so like when we restrict our children from experiencing those nerve endings think about what we're doing to their brains or not allowing their brains to experience crazy yeah yeah to experience and develop and function as the way they're designed to or evolved to. Like it's that important. And yes, the soles of a baby's foot are very soft and can be damaged easily.

17:16So that's why we put something on that still protects them from the hot, the cold and the sharp things, you know, if required. But around home, if it's not cold, then they should be comfortable being barefoot. And if, I mean, there are a lot of kids that, a lot of people in my world of barefootedness that have their kids barefoot so much of the time and they are unbelievable. They'll be like a gravel driveway, you know, and these kids are running on it. It's all about what you get used to because our feet become so hypersensitive to texture because they're so cushioned most of the time that when you add texture, it becomes so it's such a shock to the system almost almost overstimulating is that overstimulating overstimulating because and so then that's seen as a danger but it's not really a danger it's um if you have a child that only ever wears um very thin-soled shoes or no shoes at all then they are accustomed to to these different surfaces and it's not dangerous at all it's just um their feet toughen up or and their nervous system doesn't see it as a danger either they know that they can run on those surfaces.

18:26I've never thought about the, like when you're trying to get into

18:32Learning To Mom:barefootness, whatever, and how overstimulating it can be to your brain. Yeah. Never thought about that. But that makes so much sense. Yeah. Again, because you've been cutting off all of these neurons from firing in your brain for years. Interrupting this week's episode real quick for this week's segment of MomMail. If you're new here, this is the part of the show where I answer a listener submitted situation or scenario. Basically, you write in your tricky situation and I give you advice only a real mom friend would give. Here's the email we're answering today. Hi, mom friend. I'm writing in because I know you recently shared on your Instagram that you are moving.

19:09Learning To Mom:We are in the process of starting to look for a new house and I'm just wondering if you had any advice or tips for me. I'm mostly nervous about the packing and moving as I have a 14 month old. Like logistically, how are you doing this? Thank you for your advice and all the work you do on the podcast. I really feel like you're my mom friend. So thank you. Hi, mom friend. Congratulations on looking for a new house and potentially moving. Yes. So this actually is very timely because so I record like the ads and the mom mail and stuff a few weeks before the episode goes live. So like at the time that this will come out, I will have already moved.

19:55Learning To Mom:But currently I am recording this from my parents because we are out of my house because showings are happening this week. The cleaners have come. And once the cleaners come, we were not going back into the house to make anything messy. And then our new house are getting some work done. So it's just not livable right now. So I am really in the throes of it. Talking about the packing and the moving. Yes, it is actually, it is not like impossible. People do it. I, we did not pay for movers or anything. I know a lot of people do. And if you're able to financially swing that, I think that is awesome.

20:39And you like, I, I wish

20:42Learning To Mom:we did that. Um, it's just, I think it's so easy and it sounds so amazing that they just like come up and pack everything and then they take it to the new house and then they can even unpack it for you there, especially having a kid because that's kind of the hardest part. So logistically, how we did it was when we found out that we would be moving and we bought the house that we'd be moving into a few months ago because it needed some work. So we like started work on that house without listing our current house yet. So while that happened and I knew a move was on the horizon, but it was still too far out to really start packing, I'd started to go through like all of our stuff.

21:30Learning To Mom:So I was starting to go, you know, through all the drawers and the toys and everything and really downsize. So that way, at least when it would be time to pack, I would have already done the like, this is for Goodwill and this is for trash. And like, you know, maybe I can give this to a friend and all of that, which was so, so helpful because then when it was actually time to pack, which was still a monumental feat. I didn't have to weed through everything. And it's hard enough to get your child to not unpack everything that you just packed. So adding like them trying not to go through and mess up with the piles that you have, like, you know, all your, your goodwill pile, your keep, your donate piles, I would, yeah, I would just suggest kind of starting that process now before you even know where you're moving.

22:25Learning To Mom:That was super helpful. And then in terms of trying to pack and move with a kid, it really took a lot of like, okay, we're moving. So I have to get my butt in order. And they're taking a nap right now. So I'm going to have to pack the kitchen. I'm going to have to pack the family room right now. That is the least, the last thing that I want to do right now, but I'm going to have to take advantage of nap time. And that was really what we did. And then packing their room was kind of the hardest part because you can't pack it when they're napping. So we did have to get childcare for, and by childcare, I'm so blessed.

23:08Learning To Mom:He was being watched by my sister. And so then we were able to pack his room. Um, um, that's kind of logistically how we did it. I'm trying to think what else I can't speak to the moving in part because we are not there currently literally sitting in my parents' kitchen with a messy bun, red face. Like we are literally moving. Um, so currently all of our like stuff is at the new house in boxes. And then all of our furniture is still at the old house. We are not moving very far away. We are very fortunate to still be like living in this area. This isn't a cross-country move or anything. So I can't speak to that yet because we haven't unpacked because we have nothing to unpack it into since all of our dressers and furniture is still at the old house for staging purposes.

24:04Learning To Mom:but hopefully that was helpful in just those few tips that I shared because I'm still very much in the weeds and kind of just feel like I'm in survival mode to be honest after a really heavy weekend of moving all of our boxes and our stuff over I was up from 1 to 3 a.m with irregular contractions and that was actually really scary. Um, and it made me take a step back in how many trips I'm going to take up the stairs and all the boxes. And it's things that you like, no, that you shouldn't be doing, but in the moment, it's very easy to be like, well, stuff just has to get done. And this is just like a workout, but when your body's not really used to all of that carrying and lifting and moving, yeah, it caused me to have a really irregular contractions.

24:57Learning To Mom:And that was actually really scary and a good wake up call for me to slow down during all this moving. Because if I were to go into labor right now and have the baby, it would be a long NICU. And not even sure if like, I'm not, it would not be full term. We are not there yet. So yeah, that's where we're at. Thanks for writing in. I'm excited for you. Now, if you're looking for advice, email me at learningtomompodcast.mommail at gmail.com with the subject line mom mail and then keep your ears open because we might just answer it in an upcoming episode let's talk about the consequences of too much support at a young age and what it can do to like hip alignment back pain all that stuff yeah so it's very hard to know a correlation between those things like to say oh if you support the foot at this age they're more likely to get back pain or anything like that.

25:52But what we do know is that up to say 12, if there's no pain, then we shouldn't be supporting any arches. There's no correlation between putting something in place and having a future less injury. So no matter what the shape of the arch, we should just be letting it be unless there's pain. And so if an eight-year-old comes to me, just say with some pain in their knees, for example, and the mum's worried about their feet, I would rarely support that arch. I'm more likely because supporting the arch is just going to, like I mentioned before, stop certain muscles having to do some work, stop certain bones having to load like they should.