However, some also assert that persons with flat feet may have an underpronating if they are not a neutral gait. With standard running shoes, these professionals claim, a person who overpronates in his or her running form may be more susceptible to shin splints, back problems, and tendonitis in the knee. Running in shoes with extra medial support or using special shoe inserts, orthoses, may help correct ones running form by reducing pronation and may reduce risk of injury. Military performance
Studies analyzing the correlation between flat feet and physical injuries in soldiers have been inconclusive, but none suggest that flat feet are an impediment, at least in soldiers who reached the age of military recruitment without prior foot problems. A 2005 study of Royal Australian Air Force recruits that tracked the recruits over the course of their basic training found that neither flat feet nor high arched feet had any impact on physical capability, injury rates or bipedal aptitude. Although there have been results rendered from military trials that have shown those with flat feet to have fewer injuries. No current studies have been successful in fully ascertaining the chronic, long-term detriments to health that are caused by the overexertion (of which is necessary for athletes/soldiers performing with flat feet) and other compensating measures commonly enacted by the body during bipedal movement. Another divergent study of 295 Israel Defense Forces recruits found that those with high arches had almost four times as many stress fractures as those with the lowest arches.
Besides visual inspection of feet and of the treadwear pattern on shoe soles, caregivers should notice when a childs gait is abnormal or the child seems to be in pain from walking. Children who complain about calf muscle pains, arch pain, or any other pains around the foot area may be developing or have developed flat feet. Treatment
Training of the feet, utilizing foot gymnastics and going barefoot on varying terrain, can facilitate the formation of arches during childhood, with a developed arch occurring for most by the age of four to six years. Ligament laxity is also among the factors known to be associated with flat feet. One medical study in India with a large sample size of children who had grown up wearing shoes and others going barefoot found that the longitudinal arches of the bare-footers were generally strongest and highest as a group, and that flat feet were less common in children who had grown up wearing sandals or slippers than among those who had worn closed-toe shoes. Focusing on the influence of footwear on the prevalence of pes planus, the cross-sectional study performed on children noted that wearing shoes throughout early childhood can be detrimental to the development of a normal or a high medial longitudinal arch. The vulnerability for flat foot among shoe-wearing children increases if the child has an associated ligament laxity condition.