Barefoot shoes for growing feet

Children's footwear is the part of this category where the research is most encouraging and the mainstream market is most frustrating. A toddler's foot is almost pure cartilage and fat pad, with a forefoot wider relative to its length than an adult's. Then we put them in shoes modeled on adult proportions, with a tapered toe and a stiff sole.

A randomized controlled trial of minimalist school shoes in primary-school students reported improved intrinsic foot muscle size, strength and arch integrity. Another randomized trial in children aged 9 to 12 found increased cross-sectional area of the abductor hallucis and flexor digitorum brevis and increased toe strength in the minimalist group relative to control — though a separate trial in the same age range found the increases moderate and not statistically significant. That is a reasonably consistent picture for a field this size, and it is more direct evidence than most adult claims rest on.

• Width at the toes, carried right to the front. A child's foot is proportionally wider at the forefoot than an adult's. This is the single most important feature and the one most mainstream kids' shoes miss.
• A sole that bends and twists easily. If you cannot roll the shoe up with one hand, it is doing work the child's foot should be doing.
• Room to grow, but not too much. A thumb's width beyond the longest toe is the conventional rule. Substantially more than that and the child trips.
• Fastening the child can manage. A pull-on or hook-and-loop closure a four-year-old can work alone is worth more than any spec on this page.
• A price that matches how fast they grow. Toddlers can need a new size in four months. A $110 shoe outgrown in a season is a worse buy than two $35 shoes.

Young children do not reliably report that a shoe is too small. They adapt — curling their toes, changing how they walk — and the shoe keeps going on, so nothing looks wrong. Check length with your thumb roughly every six to eight weeks for under-threes and every couple of months after that.

The cheap, reliable method: stand the child on a sheet of paper, trace around both feet, and keep the tracings dated. You will see growth before the shoes become a problem, and you can compare the tracing against a brand's published internal length instead of guessing a size. The method is the same one we recommend for adults in how to measure your feet.

For pre-walkers, the simplest honest advice is the least commercial: indoors, barefoot is ideal. Shoes are for protection outdoors, not for support. When you do need them, a soft, wide, flexible shoe is closest to no shoe at all, which is the point.