Danes are getting bigger – both in height and hip and as a result, so are their feet.

“Our research shows that there is a correlation between weight, height and the length of the foot. The more you weigh, the longer your foot. And the taller you are, the longer your foot,” says Ph.D. candidate Michael Skovdal Rathleff who has surveyed the length of foot, foot posture, height and weight of 280 people.

Figures from the National Health Institute show that since 1987 Danes have put on some 6 kgs., men have grown 2.2 cms., and women 1.2 cms.

According to the Danish Shoetrade Association, normal Danish men’s shoe sizes run up to size 45 and for women up to 41. But according to a survey in neighbouring Sweden for the Swerea IVF research group, 13 per cent of Swedish women take sizes over 41 – translated to Denmark that would mean 280,000 women have difficulty in finding their size shoes.

“I am actually bigger than a 41 – but I can’t get anything bigger in the shops. So I use a 41 as that’s what I can get. And it generally hurts when I wear shoes,” says Anne Charlotte Hansen, 26.

The Defence Materiel Service is aware of the issue too.

“We’ve started ordering outsizes both for men and women. I have ordered size 53s for three men in one unit. That is a 38 cm. foot,” says Michael Christiansen of the military Equipment Service Section, adding it is difficult to get the larger sizes.

Nonetheless it doesn’t seem that the Danish shops will begin stocking the larger sizes soon, irrespective of the increase in foot size. Jens Birkeholm of the Shoe Outlet Association says that it can be bad business as the risk of having to sell at cut rates is too high for an outlet under pressure as a result of the economic crisis.

“There is focus on the size of stock – and that can determine how well you are represented in the outside sizes,” he says.

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