Wearing shoes from a young age makes your ankles less flexible

By Michael Marshall

Sebastian Kopp/Getty Images

Your shoes are changing your feet. The ankles of people who habitually wear shoes are different to those of people who walk barefoot.

These changes to ankle bones take place over the course of a person’s life, and there is no evidence that they can be passed on genetically.

In modern industrial societies, most people wear shoes from a young age. However, in traditional hunter-gatherer societies people often go barefoot, or wear only very thin footwear.

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