When buying shoes, senior citizens and baby boomers may consider this: The average adult takes about 4,000 steps per day, according to new-lifestyles.com. This doesn't include any special workouts, but just the regular walking throughout the day. Those 4,000 steps add up to about 2 daily miles.

Keep our footwear in mind, seniors and boomers, as we discuss this. Every two weeks, we're walking more than the equivalent of a marathon run, just by going to the supermarket or strolling into the nearest coffee shop for a latte. Every four years, we're walking the equivalent of a pilgrimage from New York City to San Francisco. (That's 2,930 miles, folks.)

Shouldn't our footwear be comfortable? Shouldn't our shoes fit just right? As much as we consider ourselves to be ageless, we seniors and boomers should recognize that our feet may have special needs.

We shouldn't be thin-skinned about owning up to these special needs for buying shoes. In fact, one result of aging is that we may notice that the skin on our feet is thinner than we once remember. Fatty cushions on the balls of our feet and the pads of our toes have decreased. This thinner skin makes us more susceptible to bumps and bruises, blisters and scrapes. If we have diabetes, we are even more vulnerable because of reduced circulation in our lower extremities. This means that we not only need to make sure that our shoes have an ideal fit, but we also need to take a look now and then to make sure that ulcers or infections and ingrown toenails are not developing.

Meanwhile, our feet are going to get longer and wider, and they may not necessarily do so at the same time. We may discover, oddly enough, that our best comfort comes from a Size 9 on one foot and a Size 8 on another, or maybe a one-half size as an alternative. It might seem like a financial pain to buy two pairs of shoes for one pair of feet, but wouldn't the resulting comfort be worth our while? After all, we have miles more to walk before we sleep.

SOURCES

http://www.new-lifestyles.com/quizzes.html

http://www.healthleader.uthouston.edu/archive/ORTHOPEDIC/2003/feetdontfailme-0811.html

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=how+many+miles+new+york+city+to+san+francisco%3F&ygmabtsrchbtn=web+search&fr=ush-mail-bt4

http://www.affsphere.com/Fashion-and-Apparel/Shoes/Foot-Care-for-Senior-Citizens-1.html

http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/shoeshopping-with-polio-or-clubfoot-766720.html

http://www.seniorwomen.com/hfstyle.html