Rationale

We have chosen this research topic in the hopes of increasing the hygiene standards and convenience in purchasing footwear. We think that it is unhygienic when people try on shoes with their bare feet, as there may be various kinds of fungus and viruses in the person’s foot which would be transferred to the shoe tried. Furthermore, most shoe shops do not clean the interior of the shoe after a customer has tried it. Also, it is inconvenient for people to remove their footwear before trying on the shoe they want to purchase.

In addition, we find that it is difficult for people who are wheelchair-bound to bend over in the process of donning and doffing their footwear each time they would like to try shoes on. It would provide these shoppers with a better shopping experience if they could simply buy a pair of shoes by comparing the shoe size to the length of their forearm instead of having to put it on.

According to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, the golden ratio states that the length of the foot is the same as the length of the forearm (Place, 2000), among other ratios. Therefore, we have decided to investigate if this is true. We hope that our results, if proven to be true, would increase the hygiene standards and convenience of footwear shoppers.

We chose the age group of 20-30 year olds, both male and female, to increase generalisability.  Research shows that girls are fully developed at age 16-18, and men stop growing taller at age 20-21 (Rathus, 2011). Also, “the growth spurt of the foot occurs a few months before the start of puberty” (Lovell, Morrissy, & Weinstein, 2006), hence the foot stops growing at age 12 in girls and 14 in boys. As for the forearm, it stops growing at age 13 in girls, and 15 in boys (Lovell, Morrissy, & Weinstein, 2006). Hence, we chose to exclude the age range below 20 years old.