Kids and heels don’t mix!
We’ve seen pictures of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter, Suri Cruise in heels at the mere age of three. So did many people in the US, seeing as the trend of young girls wearing high heels has sky rocketed to the point where even companies like GapKids are all offering the adult-style shoes in toddler sizes. This move has met with retaliation from several parenting groups as they argue that the shoes are not only harmful to the development of the young girls’ feet but also because this encourages the sexualisation of children.
According Bob Hardy, Foot Fitting Manager for Clarks International, kids’ feet don’t stop growing until they are mid to late teens, so they are much more susceptible to damage than ours are. While adults can twist the bones in their feet, the nineteen bones in the foot of a child are made up of two pieces. In the first fifteen years these two pieces are trying to grow into one and can be damaged irreversibly. Adult’s feet are resilient but a child’s foot as like a sponge, it will mould to whatever it is put into. Sadly, less than a majority of parents are buying the correct shoes for their children.
Aside from these health and development concerns, many parents are upset about this trend as most of the heels are designed to look like a miniature version of the sparkly and strappy party heels that a grown woman would wear. Perhaps what they are most enraged over is the fact that the heels are too much at too young an age as most companies have heels that fit a three year old.
At what age would you allow your daughter to wear heels? Share your views with us!
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