Hey yall, up a bit late today. For a lot of you over here in the US, you'd probably know that going barefoot is like...really bad. Not many people do it, and those who do end up looking bad. Meanwhile in New Zealand...Being barefoot. Prevalence at home, in school and during sport: a cross-sectional survey of 714 New Zealand secondary school boys I just find it crazy that half of kids there do school sports barefoot. 1/5 go to the damn supermarket barefoot too! I can't imagine the idea of so many people barefoot at a place like that having lived in the US all my life. It's really hard to find stats on the general population, both children in South Africa seem to embrace barefooting a lot too. Growing-up (habitually) barefoot influences the development of foot and arch morphology in children and adolescents | Scientific Reports. I wonder if there are any other places particularly friendly with being barefoot.
Excellent post! You are right I believe New Zealand and South Africa are just natural barefooters as its in the culture. Schools in SA even encourage the pupils to come to school barefoot during the spring/ summer. I do wonder though how many of them do this in life outside of school and whether or not they carry the barefooting into adulthood. As for other countries I think Hawaii, Germany and Sweden are quite barefoot friendly although maybe not as mainstream with the populas as NZ or SA. I'm in England and barefooting isn't common at all and in most public cases frowned upon although the fashion of earthing seems to be gaining more followers and the UK barefooter Facebook group is constantly gaining new members.
Maybe the U.S. can export some of its overly repressive phobias to these other countries. They obviously are lacking in this category. (and get off our backs)
I don't think all the blame can go on culture and traditions. Too many people don't know they can go barefoot. After years in shoes they think the way it feels the first week without them, all awkward and every little ground imperfection hurts, is the way it will always feel. Thats what I thought for too long and why I call shoes a scam. If you have never adapted to bare-footing, or more like recovered from shoes, its easy to conclude going barefoot sucks. All I know is wile I do see many articles promoting bare footing but they usually leave out the part about recovering from shoes and how the beginning sucks.
Nearly all children love going barefoot. As they grow up that is no longer acceptable and they gain shoes. If there was more societal tolerance, we would see fewer shoes.
Absolutely, a lot of people treat going barefoot as something completely weird and as an alternative to wearing shoes as opposed to the other way around. Most folks wear gloves when they have to. For shoes, people consider them to be the normal choice as opposed to something you wear when you need to. I still maintain that sometime in the future, everybody will go barefoot unless they need to. It's the path our society is going, in the direction of healthiness and all.
I live in the U.S. and have followed pro-barefoot websites and forums since the mid-1990s. If anything, we are becoming an even smaller minority. The barefoot running and hiking phase seems to have burned itself out, so unless there is a seismic shift in attitudes caused by some popular culture or social pressure, things will not change. Even in the "golden age", roughly 1960-1990, it was confined mostly to youth, college students and white working class. Probably only a couple of percent.
Gotta agree with hippyphile. I live in San Diego and even with the mild climate and more "liberal" attitudes here, it's rare to see anyone barefoot except at the beaches. People put on shoes to walk 10 feet down the driveway to get the mail. I overheard a neighbor lady chiding her kid for being outside in their backyard lawn "without shoes on". It's so lame. PS - Plenty of flip flops and sandals to be seen. just no bare feet.
I'm down here in Auckland, New Zealand and certainly confirm that being barefoot in public is quite commonplace, more so in summer. Both my children go to school in bare feet all year round, as do a number of others. I go barefoot everywhere and have never been hassled by the "shoe nazi's".....in fact I wouldnt know what the fuck to say to anyone who criticised me for being barefoot - in NZ we tend to mind our own business, without any judgement - we see being barefoot as a sign of freedom, not of poverty or being "trashy". I go to the supermarket, shopping mall, restaurants, kids school activities, literally everywhere in bare feet without any problems. Australia, too, is very laid back about being barefoot, I have found - again no hassles going shopping, eating out etc., when I've been there on holiday
Like Solemum I'm in New Zealand, and I live totally barefoot year-round. I no longer own any footwear at all and it's never been an issue for me. I can go anywhere, any time and my bare feet are never a problem.
I’m living in Aus at the moment, and bare feet are fine if you want to. I’ve never been hassled about it. It’s not the norm, most people are wearing shoes but it’s certainly tolerated, you’ll always see others barefoot too. The only place shoes are needed is the office! I really love it, it helps me relax and I just feel so much more chill and grounded. Plus it’s hot here in the summer (and winter sometimes too), hot sweaty feet in shoes is not fun for me!
