There is a lot of buzz on the internet about the significance of a healthy heart, a strong immune system, and the eyes being the window to a human’s soul. From mind to legs, people acknowledge the importance of almost all body parts except one—feet. Sadly, people do not have much to say about feet.
But feet are the unsung heroes of our body. They help us reach our desired destination daily and silently bear our weight all the time. So, today, let us talk about some fun and interesting facts about these not-so-glamorous, yet massively important, parts of our body.
- Not all toes have the same number of bones.
- Surprisingly, your “big” toe only has two bones, and the other “little” ones have three bones. These bones are known as phalanges. Interestingly, some people have more than five toes on their feet; this anomaly is called Polydactyly or polydactylism.
- 25% of your bones are in your feet.
- As you may know, all humans have 206 bones in their bodies. But 52 of them are on our feet—26 in each foot. Apart from these 26 bones, we have 33 joints and over 100 ligaments, muscles, and tendons. But, for babies, this is different. Their feet keep developing until they enter late teenage and, instead of an arch-like in an adult’s foot, they have a fat pad.
- Your feet contain 250,000 sweat glands.
- Isn’t it a startling number for such a small part of the body? Our feet put out approximately half a pint of perspiration daily. Therefore, they smell funky and weird when sweaty. But, for some people, sweating becomes an unending story, a non-terminable river—yeah, that’s gross. And this condition is called excessive sweating, also called Hyperhidrosis.
- Your feet have around 8,000 nerves.
- No wonder feet are the most ticklish part of our body. This is because our feet have almost 8,000 nerves and many nerve endings are near the skin’s surface. And tickling is, in fact, a good indicator of the fact that all your nerves are firing correctly.
- Our feet are growing over time.
- Yes, your foot size grows as you get older, but foot size, in general, is increasing in the United States. Today, the average foot size of all Americans has become two sizes bigger than it was 40 years ago. Wondering why? Perhaps, our feet are adapting to our heavier and taller frames.
- Foot cheese is a thing.
- Did you ever hear the phrase “your feet smell like stinky cheese”? Well, it is actually a thing. Here’s a nasty piece of trivia—it is completely possible to make actual, consumable cheese from the bacteria in foot sweat. To up the “eww” levels, here’s another fact for you—in 2013, a Foot Cheese Exhibition was held in Ireland featuring several varieties of foot cheese and cheese evolved from belly buttons and armpits. Yum, isn’t it?
We are pretty sure that you have enjoyed reading these fun foot facts as much as we did writing them!