What is the relationship between height and shoe size?
There is a closer relationship between shoe size and limb size than there is between shoe size and overall height. Unless something has interrupted normal patterns of growth, then the length of the foot from heel to tip of the big toe is exactly the length of the forearm between the inside of the elbow and the bend of the wrist. This has to do with how limb growth is genetically “balanced”. Limb growth is related to overall body length in a slightly more complicated fashion, as it is very sensitive to nutrition. The length of the torso is generally determined more by genes than nutrition, but the length of the limbs is only partly genetic, and is partly due to the quality of diet and amount of protein that the mother gets while the individual is developing in the womb.
“There is a closer relationship between shoe size and limb size than there is between shoe size and overall height. Unless something has interrupted normal patterns of growth, then the length of the foot from heel to tip of the big toe is exactly the length of the forearm between the inside of the elbow and the bend of the wrist. This has to do with how limb growth is genetically “balanced”. Limb growth is related to overall body length in a slightly more complicated fashion, as it is very sensitive to nutrition. The length of the torso is generally determined more by genes than nutrition, but the length of the limbs is only partly genetic, and is partly due to the quality of diet and amount of protein that the mother gets while the individual is developing in the womb.” So true the length of your forearm (surprisingly) is exactly the same length as your foot (unless you have some kinda of growth disorder like acromegaly/gigantism). and people who have longer arms and legs (relatively)
There is definitely a relationship, but it’s not an exact one. We could say that someone who is 5’8″ will probably have a large shoe size than someone who is 5’2″, but there are plenty of exceptions. On average, the length of a foot in inches is about 15% of the person’s height, but there is a lot of variation. My feet are ~13.5% of my height – I’m (sadly) 4’11.5″, and my feet are about 8 inches long. My sister’s feet are about 16% of her height. It’s also impossible to predict how tall a child will be based on their shoe size. So generally, the taller you are, the bigger your feet will be, but not always. My guess is that if you took the average size feet for everyone, and averaged the shoe size for each height, and then graphed average shoe size against height, you’d have a pretty linear graph. But if you just took two random people, and compared height and shoe size, the the results could be pretty much anything.
