“My foot pronates!”
No. Not in the way you think it does.
“My foot is wide!”
Possibly. But what part?
“I’m a size 10.”
Maybe in that shoe.
“I need this model because AI said it was the best one for me.”
And that is where the problem begins.
More and more customers are coming into footwear stores having done considerable research online and increasingly through AI.
Research is good.
The problem is that many customers are not actually researching.
They are feeding assumptions into an AI system and receiving those assumptions back wrapped in a highly convincing answer.
If you ask:
“I have wide feet, I overpronate and I’m a size 10. What stability shoe should I buy?”
the system has already been told what the answer needs to accommodate.
Wide foot.
Overpronation.
Size 10.
Stability shoe.
But what if none of those things has actually been established?
That is not research.
That is confirmation.
The feet we take for granted
Perhaps the strangest thing about all of this is how little attention most of us actually pay to our feet.
We stand on them.
We walk on them.
We run on them.
We expect them to carry our body weight for decades.
Then we cover them with socks and shoes and largely forget about them until something hurts.
That makes the feet particularly susceptible to a kind of altered body image.
We think we know what our feet look like.
We think we know their size.
We think we know their width.
We think we know how they move.
But how often do we actually look at them properly?
Poor eyesight or reduced near vision can make examining the feet more difficult.
Reduced mobility can make it difficult to see the soles at all.
And conditions such as diabetic peripheral neuropathy can reduce sensation, meaning that something happening to the foot may not necessarily produce the warning signal of pain that most people expect.
At the same time, years of simply ignoring our feet allow preconceived ideas to become established.
“I’ve always been a size 10.”
“I’ve always had wide feet.”
“My feet roll in.”
“I pronate.”
“My left foot is the same as my right.”
Maybe.
But when did you last actually check?
Feet change.
The two feet are not necessarily symmetrical in the first place.
And there is another inconvenient reality.
We do not get a replacement pair.
There is no shop where you can walk in and say:
“I’d like a new pair of feet, please. About a size 9, symmetrical, decent arches — and preferably not hairy.”
Unfortunately, the assistant cannot disappear into the stockroom and return carrying a fresh pair.
These are the feet you have.
That makes looking after them rather more important than the attention we generally give them.
And footwear is part of that care.
Your idea of your foot may not be your actual foot
Altered body image is usually discussed in relation to weight, body shape or appearance.
But the principle can apply to feet remarkably easily.
Our perception of our own body is partly constructed from experience.
If shoes have pinched across the forefoot for twenty years, we may conclude:
“I have wide feet.”
If somebody once watched us walk and said:
“You pronate,”
that can become:
“I am an overpronator.”
If we have bought size 10 shoes for years, we may confidently announce:
“I am a size 10.”
These ideas become part of our mental picture of ourselves.
And because feet spend most of their lives hidden inside shoes, that mental image may go unchallenged for years.
Then AI enters the conversation.
The customer tells the AI:
“I am a size 10 with wide feet and I overpronate. What running shoe should I buy?”
The AI has been given a description of the customer’s foot.
But it has not been given the customer’s foot.
That distinction is enormous.
If the mental image is inaccurate, the AI may produce an extremely sophisticated answer for a foot that effectively exists only in the customer’s imagination.
“I want a size 10 in this shoe”
Fine.
Except the shoe is a stability shoe.
So the question becomes:
“Do you actually need a stability shoe?”
“What does that mean?”
The difference between neutral and stability footwear is explained.
A stability shoe is not simply a neutral running shoe with “more support”.
It incorporates design features intended to influence movement through the gait cycle.
The customer then responds:
“I need one because I pronate.”
No.
Everybody pronates.
Pronation is part of normal human gait.
The foot adapts as it accepts load.
The important issue is not whether pronation exists.
The question is whether the amount, timing or control of that movement is actually relevant to the individual runner.
Is it excessive?
Is it poorly controlled?
Is it symmetrical?
Does it occur while running or merely appear during walking?
Is it associated with pain or injury?
Does footwear intervention actually change anything?
Those are very different questions from:
“Do my feet roll in?”
The size on the box is not the fit
One of the biggest misconceptions in footwear is that somebody “is” a particular shoe size.
Shoe size is a useful starting point.
Nothing more.
Different manufacturers use different lasts.
Different models within the same manufacturer can fit differently.
The heel cup can change.
Midfoot volume can change.
Toe-box geometry can change.
The flex point can change.
The upper can alter the way the shoe holds the foot.
So a person may fit perfectly into a size 9½ in one model and require a 10 or 10½ in another.
That does not mean their feet have suddenly grown.
It means the shoes are different.
The important question is not:
“What number is printed on the tongue?”
It is:
“Does the architecture of this shoe correspond with the anatomy of this foot?”
There are four relationships that matter most.
Heel size = heel cup
The heel should sit securely within the heel cup.
Not crushed.
Not swimming around.
Not lifting excessively.
A badly fitting heel cannot always be corrected by simply pulling the laces tighter.
The shape of the shoe has to suit the shape of the heel.
Instep height = midfoot volume
This is frequently mistaken for width.
A customer feels pressure across the top of the foot and concludes:
“I have wide feet.”
Possibly not.
They may simply have a higher instep or greater midfoot volume than that particular shoe allows.
Equally, somebody with a shallow foot can find a shoe loose even when the length appears correct.
Width and volume are not the same thing.
Ball of the foot = flex point of the shoe
This is one of the most important and most frequently overlooked parts of footwear fitting.
The ball of the foot should correspond with the point at which the shoe has been designed to flex.
The metatarsophalangeal joints need to work where the shoe is intended to bend.
A shoe can have apparently perfect toe space and still be the wrong size if the ball of the foot is sitting too far forward or too far back.
Checking the space at the end of the shoe alone is not footwear fitting.
Toe space = approximately a finger’s width
There should be sufficient room in front of the longest toe to allow natural movement, spreading and swelling.
Feet do not remain exactly the same size throughout activity.
They swell.
They spread.
They move forward in the shoe, particularly when descending.
What feels beautifully snug while standing still can become painfully restrictive several miles later.
If the heel cup is right, the midfoot volume is right, the ball of the foot is aligned with the flex point and there is appropriate toe space, then you have probably found the correct size in that particular shoe.
The number printed inside it becomes secondary.
“But I have wide feet”
Again:
How do you know?
Were they measured?
Was a 3D scan performed?
Are both feet wide?
Is the heel wide?
Is the forefoot broad?
Is the foot simply high-volume?
Are the toes naturally splayed?
Are you trying to put a broad forefoot into a strongly tapered shoe?
A person can have a broad forefoot and a narrow heel.
Another can have an average-width foot but a high instep.
Another can have low foot volume with relatively splayed toes.
Calling all of them “wide feet” is almost meaningless when selecting footwear.
The shape matters.
Walking gait is not running gait
Another common mistake is assuming that the way somebody walks tells us exactly how they run.
It does not.
Running is not simply fast walking.
Cadence changes.
Stride changes.
Ground reaction forces change.
Joint loading changes.
Foot strike may change.
The movement of the foot and lower limb can therefore look quite different when running compared with walking.
So if somebody is buying running footwear, assessment should reflect running where appropriate.
Something that looks unusual during walking may not be relevant at running pace.
And something that looks relatively neutral during walking may change considerably when running.
Gait analysis should add information.
It should not simply be used to justify a shoe category already chosen in advance.
Where AI gets caught out
AI itself is not really the villain here.
The more interesting issue is how people ask questions.
An AI system does not necessarily know that the customer has misunderstood their own body.
If you tell it:
“I am a size 10,”
it will generally work with size 10.
If you tell it:
“I have wide feet,”
it will look for wide-fitting footwear.
If you tell it:
“I overpronate,”
it may discuss stability options.
If all three assumptions are wrong, the resulting recommendation can still sound extremely knowledgeable.
That is one of the fundamental limitations of AI-assisted consumer research:
A highly sophisticated answer can be produced from an inaccurate premise.
The better questions are:
“How do I determine whether my foot is actually wide?”
“What measurements should I take before choosing footwear?”
“How can I tell whether a shoe has the correct midfoot volume?”
“How do I know whether the ball of my foot corresponds with the shoe’s flex point?”
“What does gait analysis actually show?”
“What evidence would indicate that I might benefit from a stability shoe?”
Those questions challenge the assumptions before selecting the product.
That is a much better use of AI.
The experienced fitter asks the question the algorithm cannot
A good footwear specialist does not simply ask:
“What shoe would you like?”
They ask:
“What are you using it for?”
“How far do you run?”
“What surfaces?”
“What are you wearing now?”
“Do you have pain?”
“Any history of injury?”
“Do you use orthotics?”
“What did you like or dislike about your previous footwear?”
And then they look at the actual feet standing in front of them.
Not the feet described in a search.
Not the feet imagined by an AI model.
The actual feet.
Measure them.
Compare left with right.
Look at heel shape.
Look at instep height.
Look at forefoot shape.
Look at volume.
Observe movement.
Use 3D scanning where available.
Use gait analysis where appropriate.
Then try the footwear.
Because ultimately, footwear fitting is a physical process.
Sometimes the correct answer is “No”
This is why an experienced fitter can occasionally sound rather inconvenient.
The customer says:
“I need this shoe.”
The fitter asks:
“Why?”
“Because I overpronate.”
“You don’t appear to.”
“But AI recommended it.”
“Because you told the AI that you overpronate.”
That is not dismissing research.
It is correcting the premise on which the research was based.
Good advice should not simply confirm what the customer wants to hear.
Sometimes the most useful service a specialist can provide is to challenge the assumption.
Your foot is not “wide” because you have always bought wide shoes.
You are not necessarily a size 10 because every shoe in your wardrobe says 10.
And noticing pronation does not automatically mean you require a stability shoe.
The number on the box is not the fit.
The search result is not the diagnosis.
And the mental picture you have carried around of your own feet for years may not accurately represent the feet currently standing on the shop floor.
We spend our lives taking our feet for granted.
Perhaps we should not.
After all, you only get one pair.
And unfortunately there is no returns desk.
