Everyone has seen someone who wears Earth Shoes. This remarkable shoe places your body on your heels thus aligning your back. I have often wondered if the Earth Shoe was something that was contrarian in nature, a product of the mindset of the 1960s or if perhaps, there is a reason to stand that way.
Design of the Original Earth Shoe
The shoe was originally designed by Anne Kalsø, a Danish yoga instructor who traveled to a monastery in Santos, Brazil in 1957. In Brazil she observed the superior posture of the Brazilian Indians. She studied their footprints in the sand and discovered their heel prints were lower than their toe prints. Kalso then discovered that by flexing the foot or by lowering the heel, one could achieve a feeling similar to the Yoga mountain pose. Between 1957 to 1967, Kalso to conceived of and designed a shoe that matched the stance of the Brazilian Indians. She personally tested the shoe on hikes of up to 500 miles.
Early Marketing
In 1968, Kalsø opened a retail shoe store in Copenhagen and began to sell the Kalsø Minus Heel shoe. In 1969, Raymond and Eleanor Jacobs discovered the Kalsø Minus Heel and entered into an agreement for United States distribution. In 1970, the Earth Shoe made its debut in the United States at a retail store located in New York. Coincidentally the day of the debut of the shoe was Earth Day and so the name “Earth Shoe” stuck.
The Earth Shoe expanded distribution through word of mouth and testimonials and other stores were opened throughout the U.S. and Canada. In 1974 the first advertising campaign was launched. The Jacobs began to appear on television in the Johnny Carson show, magazines ran stories on the shoe and the Metropolitan Museum of Art placed the Earth Shoe on permanent display.
Decline of Sales
In 1976, store owners filed a lawsuit against the company regarding retail store locations and availability of sufficient inventory to support demand. The Earth Shoe entered its penumbra but does not disappear entirely.
Rebirth of the Earth Shoe
From 1990 to 1998, European designer Michel Meynard sought a name brand. He recalled the Earth Shoe in a billboard depicting a shoe similar to the Earth Shoes. Over a four year period, Meynard Designs, Inc. secured all related rights to Earth Brand from a variety of individuals associated with Kalso Systemette. The Earth brand was copyrighted with the Negative Heel Technology and was sold to an “upscale” market. One could say Earth Shoes were how the well heeled were shod.
As of Summer of 2000, the Negative Heel Technology was again available and the Earth shoe returned to its prominence among the firmament of footwear.
The Negative Heel
So what does the Negative heel actually do aside from promoting posture? The incline from the heel to the toe of the shoe is 3.7%. Typical footwear places the weight of the wearer forward on the ball of the foot. Extremely high heels, such as those worn by Sarah Palin while campaigning for Vice President, tend to place all of the weight on the ball of the foot.
The Kalso design also reinforces support through the arch. The arch support maximizes the effectiveness of the heel design to promote natural walking.
The Value of the Negative Heel
You might ask here what the value of a more natural walking motion would be? While the Earth shoe has received anecdotal testimonials over time that support the claims of enhanced physiological changes brought about by wearing the Earth Shoe, photographic evidence tends to indicate that there are immediate changes to the gait and muscle use.
In 2007 Li and Hong found that the negative heel gait as compared with “normal” gait placed a higher physiologic demand on the tibialis anterior, lateral gastrocnemius and biceps femoris when walking on a level surface. Before you seek out your copy of Grey’s Anatomy, the use of the posterior muscle groups is of value to an exercise regimen in that it implies a more evenly distributed use of muscles and an increased lean body muscle mass. To assess the difference, a study was conducted comparing the use of Earth Shoe and conventionally heeled shoes to the overall impact of a fitness program based upon walking.
Walking programs such as the pedomoter-determined “10,000 Steps” program are effective ways of equating the shoe types. In a study participants were given negatively heeled shoes with a control group wearing conventionally heeled shoes. The group consisted of 31 women between the ages of 25 and 45 with random assignments of Earth shoe and non-Earth shoes in the control group with each group walking 10,000 pedometer steps. Total percentage body fat, body mass, gas exchange (oxygen uptake) and spinal curvature were compared before and after the study. After four weeks the Earth shoe group showed a 1.3% body fat decrease and an increase in fitness performance by 24.6 seconds. The study concluded that Earth Shoes can improve lean body mass and decrease fat mass when worn as a habit throughout the day. Health and fitness benefits of a walking program such as the efficiency of the cardiovascular system can also be increased as compared to walking in a conventional shoe or a non inclined (negative heel) shoe. [ Earth Footwear: Our Technology ]
Now Made in China
On a recent trip to my local shoe store, I noticed that while the shoe is designed in Denmark originally, it is now being made in China. I have emailed the company for an explanation of the change in the manufacturing site. I have received no response from Earth Shoes.
Frances Simmons - I have worked at a lot of different jobs in my life from being an attorney to being a drug counselor with stints in aerospace as a manager ...
