In 2007, Nike released a shoe designed specifically for Native Americans. It is unavailable to other people and has a notably reduced sale price to promote its adoption by the target audience . Obesity has been a particular problem for this demographic (among many) in America, and Nike's unique line was constructed in the hopes that having shoes that fit might inspire more exercise.

Source: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-26-nike-shoe_N.htm

"Nike is aware of the growing health issues facing Native Americans," said Sam McCracken, a manager of Nike's Native American Business program. "We are stepping up our commitment ... to elevate the issue of Native American health and wellness." This makes a person wonder where standard shoes fall short, and how many people might actually need shoe shapes beyond those that are mass produced...

What some of us may not think about is the diversity in the human foot--or perhaps at least the degree of it. Nike's Air Native N7 was constructed after its designers and researchers examined over 200 feet from more than 70 tribes across the nation. What they found were much wider and taller feet with a larger toe box. On average, the feet of both men and women were three units of width above that of a standard Nike shoe. (Nike 2007) These differences aren't insignificant, and while they unfortunately represent a massive inconvenience for many Native Americans who struggle to fit the narrow range of generic shoes, foot variation gives archaeologists insight about feet and shoes of antiquity.

A pairs of feet from the Philippines and then Europe
Source:http://freegrowthblog.com/438/reprint-natures-magic-bullet/

According to many, the natural use of bare feet over a lifetime would produce a ostensibly different-looking foot shape, with more widely spread toes. The ergonomics of barefoot walking might even ensure the wear and stress of locomotion on the body is better deflected.

Dr. William A. Rossi explains in the Journal of the American Podiatry Association:

         Most shoes do not properly fit the foot, simply because the shape of most shoes does not conform to            the shape of most feet. Under no circumstances is this because of any ‘conspiracy’ or neglect by                   designers and manufacturers. Most people just do not want their shoes to look like their feet. Like all             items of fashion, shoes are an illusion—the illusion of how people would like their feet to look... The               foot is not a slender stem, but shoes are so designed to make them appear so because it lends a look of         ‘elegance’ to the foot. (Koeringer 2003)

The Great toe axes of unshod feet make regular shoes a difficult fit
Source: http://freegrowthblog.com/438/reprint-natures-magic-bullet/

One of the effects of the modern shoe: bad posture
Source: http://freegrowthblog.com/438/reprint-natures-magic-bullet/

All this concerns the impact of shoes on a short term scale, but the effects tens of thousands years in shoes might account for the distinctive (and less avoidable) differences seen between European and Native American feet. Archaeologists Erik Trinkaus and Hong Sheng use this diversity to frame their research into the emergence and regularity of shoes. Native Americans tend to have wider feet.  They also show a high level of robusticity in their middle three toes. Inuits have these characteristics to lesser degree, and then European feet have some of the slimmest phalanges. This creates a spectrum of footwear habituation against which prehistoric feet might be compared (Trinkaus 2008).

By looking in the archaeological record, Trinkaus and Sheng found that nearly 30,000 year old human remains from sites in Tianyuan and Sunghir did not only have footwear, but their feet indicated a prolonged relationship with shoes, likely far before the middle of the Upper Paleolithic. Their middle toes had become more gracile, a result of the regular, artificial impact reductions of heel- and toe-off walking (Trinkaus 2008).


For more details on the impact of shoes on feet, Professor Daniel Lieberman gives a little history of modern shoes and details an experiment with barefoot running:

An though prehistoric shoes weren't adopted everywhere for various reasons, it was an essential article of clothing for some people of that time. Now, it is the probable bane of shopping for people with a rich history of bare feet in a world of standardized shoes. Although Nike has performed a well-intentioned gesture, it seems more appropriate that footwear become less "shoe-shaped" on the whole, if current styles are less ergonomically grounded.

Karl Knoeringer
2003     Reprint: Nature’s Magic Bullet. The Free Growth Blog

Trinkaus, Erik and Hong Shang
2008     Anatomical evidence for the antiquity of human footwear: Tianyuan and Sunghir. Journal of                          Archaeological Science 35(7):1928-1933.


2007 Nike unveils shoe designed for Native Americans. USA TODAY