So Now I'm Going to Be Big Foot?

So Now I’m Going to Be Big Foot?

All my grown life, my shoe size was a woman’s size 8B. So why do I have to buy size 9 and a half now?

LA Times says that:

“Dr. Steven Pribut, a podiatrist at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., estimates that some people over the age of 40 can gain half a shoe size every 10 years.”

That means at 50 I was a size 8 1/2; at 60 – a size 9; at 70 a size 9 1/2 (hey wait a minute, I’m just 68 and already there). Yikes! If I live to be a 100 years old, I’ll be Big Foot – size 10 1/2 (since I’m only 5’4″ that size is big for me).

WTF? I knew other things would keep on growing (like my waist line!), but feet? Really.

Why feet keep getting bigger.

Reason one: Our feet are full of tendons and ligaments. Apparently these lose strength and ‘springiness’ as we age, allowing arches to fall and thereby increasing the length of our foot.

Reason two: The fat on the bottom of our feet flattens out (reportedly due to all that standing about and hiking we all do) – especially if we are overweight (and how many American’s aren’t on the pudgy side these days?).

What else keeps looking or seeming bigger?

Well, for me personally, I’ve noticed my ears looking a bit longer, my nose becoming more prominent, my boobies growing more ponderous, and my waist definitely on the increase.

Noses and ears are primarily cartilage, which may keep on growing through our lives. The skin on them loses it’s elasticity allowing the cartilage to sag, thus making them seem longer.

We tend to put on the pounds as we age as well, causing all parts of our body to expand. This is partly due to lowered activity levels, partly due to loss of muscle tissue, lowering our expenditure of calories and partly due to eating becoming more and more of an entertainment activity instead of a survival one. Midsection fat and heavier breasts may also be the result of hormonal changes in our bodies. Per the Mayo Clinic site: 

“The hormonal changes of menopause might make you more likely to gain weight around your abdomen than around your hips and thighs. But, hormonal changes alone don’t necessarily cause menopause weight gain. Instead, the weight gain is usually related to aging, as well as lifestyle and genetic factors.”

Not only that, but our ligaments fail we ladies as well.

Prevention magazine says

“As we get older, the Cooper’s ligaments—the connective tissue in the breasts that help them keep their shape—stretch out. Also, breasts gradually change from having more breast tissue to having more fat, and this can make them appear less perky and even deflated looking.”

Surprisingly, people’s teeth also appear to get longer with age! Hence the expression ‘long in the tooth’. The teeth aren’t really growing though, our gum tissue just shrinks and recedes from our teeth making them look longer.

I used to think that the medical profession was just copping out when the doctors blamed something on age. Yeah, right, I thought – you just don’t know what causes it. Perhaps I was wrong.