How bad are supermarket & similar shoes for young DC

[Murtette]

DD is 3. Until now, she's worn "proper" (i.e. Clarks or Startrite) shoes or sandals 90% of the time when she has shoes on. She currently has a pair of T bar Startrite leather shoes which are fine but I'm thinking that a pair of trainers would be useful for when she's running around and that some boots would be nice for the winter. Do I have to fork out £££ for them on a proper brand or can I just pick some up in the supermarket? They are some gorgeous brown leather boots in Sainburys which seem a bargain but I don't want to ruin her feet forever for the sake or cuteness. I know a lot of people don't have a choice and can only afford to buy their shoes in the supermarket but I could afford to get her the trainers or the boots in a proper shoe shop, especially if I passed them off as part of her birthday or christmas present. The issue really is that I don't want to waste the money if I don't have to.

I was watching a programme about sports shoes a while ago and the foot specialist was saying that thin leather shoes with no cushioning were better for your feet than highly cushioned trainers, and that the reason your feet ached after wearing very flat uncushioned shoes was that your feet had become used to walking in a different way than if you were to walk barefoot. This meant that the muscles had become underused and so when you walked barefoot/thin shoes the muscle was being used more and so ached.
You never think of walking barefoot as being bad for your feet so why do you need shoes to be 'supportive' when your feet are already designed to support you without any extra help?

Just remembered how you walk differently - when you wear cushioned shoes you strike the ground with your heel which is quite a hard way to walk whereas if you walk barefoot you walk more softly to cause less impact on your foot. It was quite an interesting programme and certainly made me think that we are fed a load of BS from shoe retailers about what is good for our feet.

I often get really great shoes at TK Maxx. The Hush Puppies and Geox are great. I also got DD2 a pair of All Saints boots - £120 marked down to £20. They were beautiful but fell apart in days!

It may be worth noting that in mainland Europe, none of the kids shoes come in width fittings!!

So either a) all children have similarly width feet (unlikely)
b) it is not so much of a concern - as long as the shoe picked fits properly

Bought DS some school shoes the other day in John Lewis (they are Clarks) and out of the three pairs (all black leather shoes in the same size AND width, all Clarks) only one fitted properly. So there is still a difference between the same size/width of shoe from the same manufacturer.

Oh good grief ladies, I quite clearly meant dull ADULT shoes. Do attempt to stop taking yourselves quite so seriously and entertain the idea that some of us are able to traverse life firmly in tongue-in-cheek. If you read my post, you will quite clearly see I state "and as a result" - as a mother and mn poster, I am no longer a schoolgirl.

I think as they spend so much time in shoes at school they need to be fitted properly. For trainers, I buy supermarket but have had more success with lace ups as velcro seem to slip up a the back.

Keep a close eye when they are being fitted for shoes. Both my DCs went to a chirpodist for something else and he looked at their school shoes and said they'd been given fittings that were far too narrow and was concerned at what it was doing to their feet. He advised to have manual measuring done, not that machine thingy, and also said don't let them wear Crocs for any great length of time as their feet have to claw down at the front to hold them on and, again, not good for growth.