One of the many surprising things about high heels is the variety of heel heights that women can tolerate.
For some wearers, any heel is too high. Others think nothing of a 5 inch spike stiletto.
For most women though the answer lies in between. So how high is too high for a heel according to research?
There is little data out there. However one survey suggests that over half of women who own heels say that 3 inches is too high!
The survey was conducted online in 2014 by Edge Research. It was a national opinion survey on behalf of the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) on attitudes toward foot health and foot care.
The survey asked questions of 1,021 American feet-owners from which it identified that 256 were women who owned one or more pairs of heels.
Each woman was then asked: “At what point do high heels become too high for you?”
The results were as follows:
5 inch: 92% say this is too high!
4 inch: 77%
3 inch: 54%
2 inch: 20%
1 inch: 5%
Another 3% of respondents said that all high heels are too high, whereas 4% were not sure at what point heels became too high for them.
So what can we draw from this?
The good news for heel-lovers is that there is only a small number who say that practically any heel is too high (3% who turn against any heel whatsoever and a further 5% who tap out at 1 inch). And only a further 12% say that 2 inches is too high.
The real drop off comes at the 3 inch stage, by which 54% are saying this is too tall for them. Remembering that 4% were not sure when heels were too high for them, the real number might be closer to 60%.
A whopping further 20% of heel-owners had decided enough was enough by the time they got to 4 inch heels.
Finally, although 92% said that a 5 inch heel was too high we must also remember the 4% who didn’t know when heels got too high for them. So at the 5 inch mark, it is likely that closer to 95% of women would find the heels too high.
However just because women say the heels are too high doesn’t mean they won’t buy them and wear them! It remains to be seen what manufacturers of 5 inch heels would make of the data but chances are that if they’re still being bought then they’ll keep getting made.
It would be interesting to see the results of this survey if it was conducted in more recent times. Unfortunately APMA does not appear to have repeated the exercise since 2014.