Shoe Shame

The next time your boyfriend can’t help but stare at a long-legged blonde in four-inch stilettos, just point out the obvious: She probably has bunions.

She might also have hammertoes, calluses, ingrown toenails, corns and a variety of other disgusting foot deformities – all because of her high heels.

High heels have long been in style. But you know what they say: “Beauty is pain.” According to exercise physiologist Mary Ellen Franklin of the Medical College of Georgia, high heels are even less comfortable than going barefoot. “Eighty percent of Western women report foot pain,” she says, “while societies that have yet to invent shoes have many fewer complaints.” (However, they probably complain about how long it takes to get everywhere, seeing as that they don’t have wheels.)

Besides the aforementioned foot problems, high heels are problematic, because your adjusted height throws off your vision, leaving your legs unprepared to react to what your eyes are seeing. Therefore, high heels can be both dangerous and embarrassing.

Franklin proved this empirically with an interesting experiment (you can test it out on annoying freshman girls): Dress them in 2 1/2-inch heels, instruct them to step onto a platform and watch them fall. They will stumble 12 percent of the time and will be 9 times more likely to do a face-plant than women wearing flat shoes.

Suggestion: Turn this into a drinking game.