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How uncomfortable high-heels affect your body
It's no surprise most of us adore high-heels! Stilettos lengthen your figure and legs, provide a pleasing boost in size, giving you an extra hint of confidence and power, as you tower your colleagues. High-heels make you feel empowered, sexy and elegant, and we love them for that. But most of us don't realise the serious long-term effects of wearing uncomfortable high-heels. This is why, we at roccamore decided to raise awareness about this issue, in a series of blog-posts concerning the comfort of high-heels. Today we will focus on the negative effects of uncomfortable heels on your back.
Wearing uncomfortable high-heels affects not only your feet, but your entire body.
How does wearing uncomfortable high-heels affect your back? Wearing uncomfortable stilettos can leave your feet with bruises or sprained ankles. It’s also very common for some of us who spend a lot of time on high heels to experience low back, neck and shoulder pain, because the shoes disrupt the natural form of the body.
"The body needs to be centered from head to toe. High heels put the foot at an angle and pull muscles and joints out of alignment, so the effects aren’t limited to the feet,” Dr. Surve.
Structurally, the plantar fascia in the foot is connected to the calf muscle, which in turn connects to the hamstring. The hamstrings attach to the pelvis and low back, which is why wearing high heels can make your back ache along with your feet. Also, walking on the balls of your feet will shift your center of gravity forward, forcing you to arch your back while standing and further contributing to back pain. Why does wearing uncomfortable high-heels result in back pain? The S-curve shape of the back acts as a shock absorber for the entire body by reducing stress on the vertebrae. Wearing heels causes the lumbar spine to flatten and a posterior displacement of the head and thoracic spine. When wearing high-heels, women naturally lean forward and the body’s response to that is to decrease the forward curve of your lower back to help you keep in line. Muscles are overused, thus back pain occurs. 
Next time we will talk about, the wrong postures a lot of us make while wearing high-heels and how to learn to walk correctly in heels. Until then we have a little quiz for you. What went wrong with the posture below? Let us know in the comments. 
Source 'The Real Harm in High-Heels' American Osteophatic Association.