Structural asymmetry of foot arch formation in early school-age children

Study aim: the purpose of the study was to compare foot shapes in early school-age boys and girls.

Material and methods: the study included 90 boys and 98 girls aged seven to nine years old. The shape of the foot arch was examined using a podoscope. The longitudinal arch was assessed according to the Clarke angle value on the basis of Kasperczyk’s classification. The transverse arch was assessed according to the Wejsflog index. An analysis of variance, a post-hoc LSD test and a chi-square test were performed.

Results: normal transverse arches in both feet appeared in 84% of the examined children. An analysis of the average value of the Wejsflog index showed that it is similar and within limits in all of the test groups indiscriminately when it comes to gender and age. Normally, longitudinal arches in both feet occurr in 44% of children. The average value of Clarke’s index in a test group of school-age girls was within normal range while a functionally flattened foot appeared in the case of seven and eight-year-old boys.

Conclusions: the outcomes of the present study conducted on a randomly chosen group of developing boys and girls show that changes in foot structure are mostly symmetrical in nature (almost 90%), meaning that if the left foot i