Sarah Jessica Parker Gets Real on the Hidden Dangers of High Heels

by Adam Corl

It might be fair to say Sarah Jessica Parker’s shoes were the second biggest star of Sex in the City, but the style icon recently opened up about the very real consequences of wearing high heels for so many hours a day for such a long period of time. 

If you are like me and look to see what Parker is wearing on her feet in every paparazzi photo I stumble across, you may have noticed that during the day or at casual events, she has been wearing cute but sensible shoes lately. 

It turns out that wearing her trademark stilettos left some serious wear and tear on her feet. She told the online magazine The Edit that she found out just how serious the damage was when she hurt her ankle on the set of I Don’t Know How She Does It. She was told that her feet where able to bend in ways they shouldn’t be able to and that there were actual changes in the bone structure of her feet. 

She and her doctor feel that the damage was caused by all those years of spending 18 hours a day in heels. Sarah Jessica said that she feels that wearing less expensive shoes with plastic soles caused the majority of the damage, and that more expensive shoes have a better design and therefore pose a lesser risk. 

A study came out last year in the Journal of Applied Physiology, which showed that women who wore higher heels were at a much higher risk for developing problems with their joints and tendons. The scientists behind the study and many foot specialists agree that ways of reducing your risk are wearing shoes with different heels of different heights throughout the week, wearing more sensible shoes to commute to work, incorporating wedges into your shoe wardrobe, and to start using orthopedic insoles at the first signs of damage. 

Sarah Jessica Parker, known for her sense of style, may be skirting around the exact cause of her foot damage a bit, but she has, at the very least, started a conversation in which we can start thinking more critically about the ways fashion can affect our health. 

Photo Credit: Franz Richter