Seventy-five percent of Americans have serious foot problems at
one point of their lives, although only a small portion of the
population is born with foot problems. Others who were born with
perfectly good feet develop problems due to inattention and lack
of awareness of the importance of well-maintained feet. The 52
bones of a pair of feet is 25% of the body’s total number of
bones. Together with 33 joints, 107 ligaments and 19 muscles of
each foot, the feet absorb about five times the body weight in
pressure everyday. Typical foot problems include sores,
athlete’s foot, cuts, ingrown toenails, bunions, calluses and
plantar warts. To avoid most of these problems, good foot care
should be a habit, including but not limited to daily inspection
of the feet, toes and toenails. This is especially true for
people with diabetes, because the nerve damage and compromised
blood flow may keep them from discovering cuts that could
develop into serious wounds and perhaps amputations because they
also do not heal as fast