HYGIENE ACTIVITY

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 June 1921, Page 7

HYGIENE ACTIVITY

SKIRTS AND HIGH HEELS. LONDON, April 7. The Institution of Hygiene is showing great activity just now. Sir Janies Allen, at <> dinner there to-night, is to speak on fruit supplies, and in view . of the publicity being given io the need for fruit in the hunllm diet he will be able to push home the text that New Zealand is ready to play its part. But the catholicity of the institute’s interests is shown by a lecure given there yesterday on feet and how to keep them healthy, and in it the old medical adherence to low heels is declared to be quite wrong. It was a universal and traditional idea that the majority of the troubles curring in tlie feet were the evil results of the use of heels, but the anatomy and movements of ihe foot fully showed* that the strain on the long arch must lessen in proportion as the heel was raised. ■ , , , The now hygiene view is that women, being hampered by skirts, could not get freedom of movement in the hips, and it might be from tins cause that women needed the more efficient support afforded by heels The action of the foot in man was not nearly so marked as in women as men propelled themselves with the b p movement of long . strides, while women walked more with then h< • Women favoured high heels, c while there was no doubt that son did so far purely cosmetic reasons rt was certain that the majority oi women wore high heels as a to the relief afforded to the ligamen of the fo °L_ n—