26 Fun Feet Facts that May Surprise You

Feet get overlooked but here are 26 interesting fun feet facts that may surprise you. Feet support us all day long but how often do we consider the workings of the amazing foot anyway? Here's your chance to expand your knowledge about feet in general and to learn more fun facts about the anatomy of the human foot.

If haven't already seen our previous post 30 Weird Facts About the Human Body feel free to check it out.






The foot has over 100 muscles and tendons and 8,000 nerves



1. There are 26 bones in the human foot.


2. The human foot has 33 joints.


3. Your foot has 250,000 sweat glands producing up to half a pint of perspiration each day.


4. There are over 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments in a human foot.


5. A foot has approximately 8,000 nerves, more than any place else on the body per square centimeter.





At one year old a child's foot has grown half its adult size






6. By the time a baby is one year old the foot has grown to half its adult size.


7. Children are 2½ years old before the pad of fat they were born with develops into an arch on the foot.


8. 1-2 in every 1,000 children are born with polydactylism and possess an extra toe or finger.


9. It is rare for a human to have two feet of the same size. Most of us have some slight variation with one foot larger than the other.


10. The skin on the sole of your feet is thicker than anywhere else on the body.





The sole of the foot has the thickest skin on the body




11. A thick pad of fatty tissue under the sole of the foot absorbs impact and pressure. If damaged, heel pain known as plantar fasciitis may ensue requiring the need for orthotics.


12. Human feet are largest at the end of the day.


13. Researchers have recently proved that there is no correlation between foot size and penis size.


14. Foot sizes are thought to be getting bigger. Typically the best selling shoe sizes in the USA are 10.5 for men and 8.5 for women which is a full size larger than 30 years ago.


15. Brachymetatarsia is an abnormal reduction in the length of one or more toes and has an incidence range of 0.02% and 0.05%. It is 4 times more common in females than males. Jennifer Garner is known to have this condition and has an overlapping pinky toe.


16. Hammer toe is an abnormal bending in the middle joint of a toe, usually the second but can occur in third and fourth toes. It is more common in women and particularly as they age. Hammer toe and Mallet toe (bending of the joint nearest the toenail) are largely attributed to poor fitting footwear and occur in people with longer toes.
    

    

    Feet are largest at the end of the day

    
    
17. Toenails are made out of keratin which is a hardened protein also found in skin and hair.


18. Toenails grow more slowly than fingernails. Toenails grow at a rate of approximately 1mm a month compared to fingernails that grow about 0.1mm per day.


19. Toenails of males grow faster than those of females except in pregnancy when women's toenails are known to grow faster.


20. The timeframe to grow an entirely new toenail is around 6 months for an ordinary toe and approximately 12 months for a big toe.


21. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.





Ingrown toenails are hereditary. Look after your feet.



22. The whole foot is never flat on the ground when walking due to motion of the feet.


23. The gait pattern of the right and left foot do not typically match. When there is significant mal-alignment beyond what is considered normal, back, hip and knee pain may occur.


24. About 20 percent of the US population has a foot problem each year including plantar warts, athlete's foot, fungal infections, ingrown toenails, corns and calluses.


25. Conservative estimates suggest our feet carry us over 60,000 miles in a lifetime. No wonder the occasional foot massage is nice.


26. Only a small percentage of the world's population are born with foot problems. It is thought that many foot injuries are related to ill-fitting footwear and lack of proper foot care.





Many Foot Injuries Occur Because of Bad Fitting Footwear 

In this article you have learned 26 interesting and fun feet facts and some of the oddities peculiar to human feet. If you would like to know interesting and fun facts about the body try our article 30 weird facts about the human body and 30 gross facts about the human body. Also check out the links below for the other human body facts that might interest you.


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