Studies on Design Innovation and Dynamics of Footwear for Obese Individuals

The obese population is constantly increasing worldwide which is a

matter of serious concern opined primarily by the medical professionals and

followed with end-user products designers, technologists and scientific

community. The obese individuals are inclined to experience series of foothealth

consequences that are leading to enormous fear and threat and lack of

confidence amongst this specific community. The heaviness of Body Mass

Index is the threatening factor for the development of various health problems

associated with foot. It is also observed that footwear is an important player of

aggravating the foot related consequences especially for obese people. The

footwear of inappropriate match of foot characteristics would develop

discomfort for the beneficiaries. Hence, the significance of footwear

necessitates specific attention in order to render foot-comfort solutions and

advantages for the obese individuals in the present scenario. In this study, an

attempt has been made to evolve design features on footwear and conduct

experimental analysis on functional dynamics of footwear for obese. In the

current research study, the external design configurations with different

angles especially on the heel regions of footwear would be developed and

their efficacies with respect to design angles over the energy absorption, load

dissipation, ground reaction forces would be scientifically analysed to

ascertain the optimum footwear for the beneficiaries.

Initially, data on foot morphological characteristics of obese

individuals are collected for statistical analysis. The Pearson Correlation

analysis revealed the Body Mass Index, fitting girth and ankle girth possess

significant linear relationship with positive correlation. There is no much

significance found between body mass index and length of foot. The findings

on the foot characteristics of obese individuals revealed significant difference

with normal foot subjects and the data collected from foot parameters helpful

for modeling shoe-last and develop appropriate footwear exclusively for

obese.