Foot pressure differences in men and women
Introduction
Foot pressure analysis has been used in various studies to detect foot pathologies [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. These studies have identified the pressure characteristics during gait, contact area of the plantar aspect of the foot and the forces produced. Despite the range of devices available to measure these characteristics during barefoot and in-shoe pressure measurements, there have been no studies to explore these characteristics and investigate differences in foot pressures between males and females. Women and men are anatomically and physiologically different in a number of ways. They differ in both shape and size. For example, females have greater valgus at the elbow, greater varus at the hip and greater valgus at the knee compared to males [6]. Anthropometric studies have found considerable differences between the foot bones of each gender which have helped in identifying gender in forensic science studies [7], [8]. Murphy et al. [9] compared the mid foot contact area and plantar pressure in males and females and found no difference among genders in this region. However they divided the foot into four regions only, which does not fully represent all areas of foot well and fails to show subtle differences in the different regions. They only compared the midfoot region for plantar peak pressure and contact area in their study. No comparison was done for contact time, pressure–time integral, force–time integral, instant of peak pressure, maximum force and mean force. The purpose of this study was to compare in-shoe foot pressure parameters in males and females in 10 different regions of the foot for all the important pressure measurement characteristics.
Section snippets
Methods
Twenty-eight volunteers (16 females and 12 males) were recruited. Subjects were excluded if they had experienced foot pain within the previous 6 months, had any previous foot surgery, presented with congenital or acquired foot deformities on clinical examination, or had any other disability that could affect gait (e.g. flat feet, visual and/or hearing impairments, problems in the lower limb or spine, or any condition that necessitated the use of walking aids). Demographics including age,
Contact area
CA was significantly larger both statistically and clinically in all the regions of the foot in males compared to females (P < 0.001). The mean CA of the heel among males was 44.1 cm2 and in females it was 34.1 cm2. The great toe had a larger CA of 8.3 cm2 in males compared to 6.7 cm2 in females (P < 0.001). The 1st metatarsal head was larger in males (13.2 cm2) than in females (9.9 cm2). The difference in the contact area could not be attributed to the difference in the various BMI groups except in the
Discussion
Higbie et al. [12] studied the foot structure and in-shoe plantar pressure differences between 20 individuals in both genders. They found greater calcaneal eversion and forefoot varus in females compared to males. For the left foot, males had greater peak plantar pressure in the medial forefoot region than females (P = 0.009); however, females had higher peak plantar pressure in the lateral forefoot and hallux regions than males (P = 0.017 and P = 0.012, respectively). For the right foot, males had
Conclusion
The contact area is greater in males than in females, however there are no significant between gender differences in the peak pressure characteristics of the feet. The maximum and mean forces are higher in males and FTI is larger in males in certain regions. This is the first study investigating eight important foot pressure parameters.
Source of funding
Institute of Motion Analysis and Research (IMAR) internal funding.
Conflict of interest statement
We have no conflicts of interest either financial or personal with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence our work.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. L. Cochrane and Dr. W. Wang for their help with statistics, Mr. I. Christie for illustrations and Mr. G. Boath for technical support.
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