Laer: "show your feet" - laer - münstersche newspaper

The "Orthofit" campaign is all about children’s feet. As part of the annual foot health education week, Dr. Stefan Heidl with his team at the Werner Rolevinck School in Laer. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness specifically from parents for one to sensitize their children’s healthy foot development. Movement is a very important factor here.

“Show your feet here” – like the well-known children’s song, the name of the “Orthofit” campaign of the Professional Association for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery (BVOU) has been used since 2010. This week specialist Dr. med. Stefan Heidl from Steinfurt examined the walking tools of girls and boys from the first three classes of the Werner Rolevinck School. He was on the road for the sixth time as part of the annual foot health education week. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness specifically from parents to raise awareness of healthy foot development. Movement is a very important factor here.

"We have set up a circular course," says Heidl, "the children walk and run here, they balance and experience qualities such as warm, cold, pointed and dull. The participants were given the opportunity to consciously train their body awareness on feet only wearing socks. So they walked over nub pillows to test their sense of balance, over yielding gravel beds, experienced the warm, soft foam rubber mat and much more.

“I look at the children’s coordination skills,” explained Heidl, “most of them are in top positions”. In general, it rarely happens that the motor skills of girls or boys are left behind, the expert explained.

Finally, the specialist staff supporting the doctor made blueprints from his feet. In this way, the pressure distribution can be mapped well and the trained eye can see how the foot is constructed in the longitudinal and transverse arch. Finally, the students were given certificates in their hands. Notes tell you whether a foot needs to be checked or not. The children took it as a kind of game and completed the course with enthusiasm.

“A typical problem is wrong footwear,” said Heidl. Children sometimes wear shoes that are too small or too large. In addition, the small children’s feet are usually put in shoes too early, which completely shield them from external stimuli. As a result, the doctor says, the posture suffers, deformities can occur, some develop kinked, lowered or spreading feet, and others.

Attention was also paid to malpositions in the knee joints. “If you already notice X- or O-legs, you should decide at the age of around twelve whether a medical intervention makes sense,” says Heidl. The foot is not naturally stressed in the event of malposition of the knee joints, which can lead to complications in the course of life. In this context, an insightful finding: 99 percent of people are born with healthy feet, but only a third get old with healthy feet.

Laer: “show your feet” – laer – münstersche newspaper

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