Put your best foot forward in groundbreaking shoes

With foot issues on the rise, Josh White road-tests a pair of shoes claimed to be the world's most comfortable

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Foot pain is blighting the lives of tens of thousands of Brits, say experts. And about half of all problems are down to footwear, explains consultant podiatric surgeon Ron McCulloch.

Ill-fitting, badly designed and, frankly, impractical shoes, are causing myriad problems. Heel pain in particular is reaching an "epidemic" level, says Mr McCulloch, director of the London Podiatry Centre, with plantar fasciitis the most common cause of pain in his patients.

The other hotspot is the second toe joint, which bears the brunt of the body's weight if the foot is unbalanced and the big toe becomes unstable.

Foot pain, it emerges, has been on the rise after Covid. Many of us got out of the habit of wearing shoes or walking far as we went out less.

Going without shoes might feel nice but, long-term, a lack of arch and foot support can be damaging, Tendinitis, overcompensating for pain or discomfort, can also occur when we don't wear shoes. Or, indeed, the right ones.

The fashion for sliders, flip-flops and sandals has left us more vulnerable to toe and ankle injuries too. Mr McCulloch has now collaborated with a leading footwear firm to design the most comfortable loafers out there.

They say that, before you judge a man, you should "walk a mile in his shoes", so I agreed to do just that to test the slip-ons and see if they could ease my own aching feet.

As a busy parent who commutes three or four days a week, I find myself getting painful feet and ankles as much as the next person.