London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Ealing 1960

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ealing]

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70
shoe-fitting training course, Eleven shops gave their
assistants refresher courses in shoe-fitting from time
to time, but nine never did.

Table V - Details of the Fittings of Children's Shoes

in 25 Shops

No. of Shops
Fitting by assistantsAll14
Some8
None1
Whether trainedAll16
Some6
Untrained assistants fitting in busy periods8
Training byManager16
Firm4
Course0
Refresher coursePeriodically11
Once1
Never9
X-ray machine used8
Value of machineGreat0
Little8

Part VII - Eight shops used an x-ray machine for
fitting, but they all agreed it was of little value,
Discussion
Though there are many criteria that can be used to
define a well-designed shoe0 only two were used in
this survey, A suitable children's shoe was defined as
having a rounded toe and a straight inner border. All
the 25 shoe-shops stocked such a shoe,
Other surveys have shows that to fit a high proportion
of children's feet there must be at least
three width-fittings to every half-size (Craigmile,
1953), The Somerset survey, carried out with the cooperation
of CI arks shoe firm, stated that with their
multi-fitting range of shoes, 92% of girls and 87% of
boys could be properly fitted in winter, and 98% of
girls and 95% of boys with summer sandals (County
Medical Officer, Somerset, 1953), The Satra House
Research Report (RR98), "'Dimensions of Children's Feet,"
showed that a range of five width-fittings would cover
95% of children's feet and three width-fittings 91% of
children's feet This Ealing survey shows how poor is
the stock of width-fittings in the shoe-shops, for
less than half of them stocked three or more widthfittings.
Though well-designed shoes were found to be adequately
stocked for the age-group 3-11 years, fewer
shops catered for the 11 - 18 age-group. This infers
that men's and ladies' styled shoes are usually sold
to this age-group,
A very poor stock of shoes of the larger sizes was
found in the shops. This obviously adds a further
difficulty to the parents of children with big feet,
and, in the case of girls, encourages the purchase of
a ladies9 style shoe
Inferior Styles of Girls' Shoes - A girl's shoe is
made to look "pretty" or "fashionable" by altering the
basic details of a well-designed shoe in one of the
following ways:
(a) The site of the strap in a bar-instep style is
changed from the side of the shoe to the back, doubled,
and fastened by a button across the front of the instep,
The toe shape remains unchanged,, but because of the