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What is Health and Wellness Footwear?

Health and Wellness Footwear is becoming increasingly popular. The footwear industry has recognised it as one of the fastest growing sectors of the industry, the amount of people who own a pair of health and wellness shoes is rapidly growing, the press love the topic and even celebrities are jumping on the idea that the type of footwear you chose can have a direct impact on health, wellness, weight loss, toning, cellulite and fitness.

Before LoveThoseShoes.com first introduced MBT’s in to the UK in 2002, the concept of healthy footwear was unknown on our shores. However, 6 months after the launch of MBT, LoveThoseShoes.com then launched Earth Footwear.  Originally launched worldwide in the 1970’s, the phenomenon of Earth Footwear then shifted to the States when it was bought by an American company and the fan base in Europe was left wondering if the brand would ever return. So when LoveThoseShoes.com re-launched the Earth in 2003, word of mouth picked up quickly and it was soon outselling MBT on the site.

Since 2003, LoveThoseShoes.com has built a reputation for being the number one destination for health and wellness footwear in the UK and stocks around 20 different brands of Healthy Shoes.

As with every growing trend there will always be imitation products, but because LoveThoseShoes.com started out at the beginning, we only stock the best in health and wellness footwear.

Here is our explanation of the different types of Health and Wellness Footwear brands:

• Although most Health and Wellness Footwear brands have a number of different benefits, you can generally split them in to the following categories based on their main benefits:
• Fitness and Exercise Footwear
• Comfort Footwear
• Medical Footwear

• Fitness and Exercise Footwear is a very popular category with consumers and developers. Fitness and Exercise Footwear when considered in the Health and Wellness category will include a specific technology that offers benefits such as increased flexibility, enhanced toning benefits or technology devised to combat cellulite. A lot of fitness and exercise footwear brands will have clinical studies carried out on their products and technologies to ensure they do provide the benefits they claim. A lot of them also base their technologies on the practises of Yoga and Pilates.
• Comfort footwear is a huge footwear category that has been around for years, and as the trend of Health and Wellness Footwear grows it has naturally been included under the umbrella. As such, most traditional comfort brands don’t include a ‘technology’, they simply offer soft leathers or a wide foot bed. However, there is a new breed of comfort footwear that has been developed as part of the Health and Wellness Footwear trend. The brands that make this type of comfort footwear invest heavily in research and development to come up with innovative ways to make shoes more comfortable. Some of the most recent developments include Stitch and Turn, On Air Technology and Soleplex Technology.
• Medical Footwear is a category of Health and Wellness Footwear that can help with specific medical conditions. Most Health and Wellness Footwear brands do have benefits that can ease medical conditions such as back pain, poor posture, and foot pain. These brands have specific technologies that usually help align our bodies and support the joints properly, or have a specially designed foot bed to ease foot pain.  Some brands are developed specifically as a solution for medical conditions and are usually connected with the NHS and other health practitioners. MBT is an example of a specific medical shoe and as such it only available from special shoe fitters.

Here are our tips on what to look for when buying a pair of Healthy Shoes:

• All health and wellness footwear should have clear features and benefits.
• You should be clear of the health benefits you’ll get by wearing the shoes – make sure these fit in with the benefits you’re looking for or the condition you’d like to help.
• Most health and wellness footwear brands invest in clinical tests to prove the benefits work - especially when the brand makes claims about weight loss, so look for evidence of this.
• If a health and wellness footwear brand claims to have medical benefits, like correcting posture, helping with back pain, they will usually have testimonials from experts and customers that back up the claims.
• Make sure that the store you buy your shoes from are knowledgeable about what they are selling. The most experienced Healthy shoe stores will only stock Health and Wellness Footwear; as such they will have specific knowledge about all brands of healthy footwear and will be able to help you identify the best brand for you. Try to buy from a company that you can call and talk to a representative about the brands you’re interested in.

Up until recently the main brands of Health and Wellness footwear were fairly unknown compared to big brands out there like Nike and Adidas. However, as the trend grows the original brands are now becoming well known, and the major brands like Nike and Adidas are developing their own Health and Wellness styles.