A recent study presented by Swedish scientist, Yarl Vlijnzmark, drew a correlation between the harmful effects of wearing high heels and women’s intelligence, speed of perception and even the possibility of getting afflicted by schizophrenia. A Saudi academic has rejected this medical study that has been circulating recently on several websites and online forums.
Professor Abdulmannan Mullah Bar, faculty member of the postgraduate department at Umm Al Qura University, denied the theory during an interview with Arab News. He said: “Throughout my experience in the field of psychology, particularly psychotherapy, I have never come across a study that signals that high heels lead to mental problems, as mentioned by the Swedish scientist, and especially not his claim that it causes schizophrenia.”
Mullah Bar continued to explain, “Schizophrenia is a mental illness caused by the disturbance or atrophy of the functions of the brain and these reasons may be hereditary or due to mental disorders incurred during infancy. It is not possible for external factors such as wearing high heels to cause Schizophrenia.” Vlijnzmark’s study, which was published in a scientific medical journal called Hubothesi, notes that there are higher rates of schizophrenia in countries where women wear high-heeled shoes.
He postulated in his study that high heels increase the tension on women’s feet by forcing them to walk in an unhealthy way. Consequently this could lead to the prevention of nerve receptors in the muscles of the foot from releasing dopamine, a compound that is important to sanity.
Meanwhile, Asrar Abu Zahra, a psychologist, confirmed that wearing high heels has an impact on the psychological comfort and mental integrity of women, explaining “High heels directly affect the spine and the vertebrae, thereby straining the spinal cord, which has an important role in transmitting neural signals from and to the brain.” She added that the brain is primarily responsible for the mental processes, and the body as a whole, with its different organs, acts as one unit with no separation between its parts; meaning each part affects and is affected by every other part of the body.
However, Mullah Bar emphasized that the theory is not based on scientific facts, as mental diseases including schizophrenia are divided into two types, the first being paranoia and the other megalomania. He added that these mental diseases are purely mental illnesses, which happen as a result of disturbances in the functions of the brain. He reiterated that in scientific terms, wearing high heels couldn’t cause this disease.
Moreover, he warned about the seriousness of trusting unofficial and unsupported studies.
Vlijnzmark said that wearing high heels emerged a thousand years ago and led to the emergence of the first cases of schizophrenia among middle-aged women. He added that he was studying and tracking the first place in the world where women started wearing high heels and he found that it was in Mesopotamia, which is a land between the two rivers in Iraq.
According to historical references, the first documented incidence of high heals was recorded in one of the palaces in the Abbasid era. The style emerged as a result of the jealousy of one of servants toward her coworker, who was favored by the head of the palace, even though she was not more beautiful or feminine, but simply because she was taller.
The story goes on to say that the jealous servant went to her shoemaker, asking him to add a few more centimeters to her shoes.
After wearing the high heel shoes for a long period of time, the center of gravity moved from the soles of her feet to her limbs and affected her badly, causing her to loose sanity.
