Best Foot Forward

Healthy Feet Matter to Children

By Kelly Burgess

When you go into the doctor's office for a checkup of any kind, the first thing they tell you is to take off everything but your socks. So how then, wonders Michael King, D.P.M., a podiatrist in Fall River, Mass., can they check to make sure there's nothing wrong with your feet?

Good question. In fact, foot health in kids of all ages is sorely neglected unless the problem becomes so severe that the child limps or complains of pain. This can lead to all sorts of little problems that can turn into big ones if not caught early.

Unfortunately, I'm an accidental expert on the topic of foot health because I'm from a family with notoriously bad feet. From bunions (mine) to warts (my daughter's) to the nasty fungus my son regularly brings home from Boy Scout camp, we've seen it all. It's all made me a bit of a fanatic about taking a good look at my kids' feet every month or so. It's also led me to think that maybe other parents need a bit of a foot health primer, so below are some common foot problems in children and how they should be treated.

James Thomas, D.P.M, of the University of Alabama Birmingham, says that most serious foot problems are caught fairly quickly after a baby is born. "The really bad things congenitally are picked up almost immediately, so where the parents become important in diagnosing foot problems is when the child is at least 3 or 4 years old," he says. "Up to about age 4, kids just pick their feet up and put them down. Around age 4 is when they develop a heel/toe gait. This is when foot problems can begin to manifest themselves."

Thomas says to look for the following:

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