Good shoes + well-being, who doesn’t want it?

Well-being can be described as a state of being comfortable, healthy or happy. Wellbeing is a growing area of research for many researchers, yet the question of how it should be defined remains unanswered. More recently, researchers from Cardiff Metropolitan University (UK) presented a new more consensual definition of well-being as the balance point between an individual’s resource pool and the challenges face. In essence, stable well-being is when individuals have the psychological, social and physical resources they need to meet a particular psychological, social and/or physical challenge [1].

Within this definition of well-being, comfort is a relevant player in achieving the balance point.  Comfort is associated with feelings of relaxation and well-being and discomfort is associated with pain, tiredness, soreness, and numbness [2]. This author pointed out also that poor biomechanics may turn comfort to discomfort even though good biomechanics is not a necessary and sufficient condition for comfort.

All of this is more relevant in work environments where psychological, social and/or physical challenges are higher, and good example for it is the cabin crew’s activity. Dealing with passengers, long working hours, standing and turbulence conditions, among others, demand a good equilibrium between physical and physiological aspects.

For example, is it possible to be in well-being conditions if the feet hurt? Is it possible to be in well-being conditions if the feet are too hot, too cold, or sweat? A research study did an intensive survey of the difference between comfortable and uncomfortable ladies´ shoes and found that the differentiating factors were size of the shoes, unpleasant odors, texture, the feeling of the shoe, and amount of discomfort or pain when wearing the shoe. In other words, the differences were in tactile (size, texture, feel, climate) auditory and olfactory sensations [3].

So, is very important that work wear (that is continuously used during long hours) be think in such a way that reflect the conclusions from ergonomics, biomechanics and other research studies. This shall result in technologically advanced solutions that will provide the best wearing conditions, that shall contribute for permanent comfort and therefore for well-being condition.

In result, these products shall be looked as working tools that care about people needs. For SKYPRO these are mandatory guidelines and every product must result from technical-scientific knowledge, gathered with the last-generation technological solutions to present differentiated products that shall care for people’s lives and make their contribution for well-being.

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