Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

by Cat Bohannon

Consider that every pound of body weight normally puts an extra pound and a half of pressure on the knee joint when we walk around barefoot. It goes up to four times the pressure when we jump. Our bodies have evolved to mostly handle that. But modern, gendered footwear can pull the rug out from under us: in high heels, our center of gravity is tipped forward, meaning that instead of the buttocks and hamstrings, the quadriceps at the front of the thighs have to do the lion’s share of the work, yanking the top of the knee upward, further compromising the joint. Over time, that can damage the ligaments in the knee, wear away at cartilage, and generally wreak havoc. It’s bad for our toe joints, too: walking in heels eliminates the “roll” of normal walking and instead can mean, depending on the heel’s height, a repeated slamming of all your body weight and momentum onto the forefoot.