The obese population is constantly increasing worldwide which is a
matter of serious concern opined primarily by the medical professionals and
followed with end-user products designers, technologists and scientific
community. The obese individuals are inclined to experience series of foothealth
consequences that are leading to enormous fear and threat and lack of
confidence amongst this specific community. The heaviness of Body Mass
Index is the threatening factor for the development of various health problems
associated with foot. It is also observed that footwear is an important player of
aggravating the foot related consequences especially for obese people. The
footwear of inappropriate match of foot characteristics would develop
discomfort for the beneficiaries. Hence, the significance of footwear
necessitates specific attention in order to render foot-comfort solutions and
advantages for the obese individuals in the present scenario. In this study, an
attempt has been made to evolve design features on footwear and conduct
experimental analysis on functional dynamics of footwear for obese. In the
current research study, the external design configurations with different
angles especially on the heel regions of footwear would be developed and
their efficacies with respect to design angles over the energy absorption, load
dissipation, ground reaction forces would be scientifically analysed to
ascertain the optimum footwear for the beneficiaries.
Initially, data on foot morphological characteristics of obese
individuals are collected for statistical analysis. The Pearson Correlation
analysis revealed the Body Mass Index, fitting girth and ankle girth possess
significant linear relationship with positive correlation. There is no much
significance found between body mass index and length of foot. The findings
on the foot characteristics of obese individuals revealed significant difference
with normal foot subjects and the data collected from foot parameters helpful
for modeling shoe-last and develop appropriate footwear exclusively for
obese.
