What’s Wrong With Big Feet?

Ok, I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of day, and I feel like it’s a question I need to put out in the blog-o-sphere. Y’all ready?

Last Thursday, I posted about Reebok’s running shoe line. In that post, I mentioned that my feet had grown from a size 8 to a size 9 in the span of four weeks. And yes, I referred to myself as “Big Foot.” You see, I’ve been a size 8 in shoes ever since the 8th grade. I am now 30, so I have clearly experienced many years of size 8 shoe-dom. When my feet took such a dramatic size leap in such a short period of time, it caught me off guard. Additionally, I am only 5’4″. As per statistics, size 9 is above average for my height in females. Granted, my “scientific” stats are coming from Google, but whatever! My search showed the average American female height these days to be 5’4″ while the average shoe size is a 7. So you see? I perfectly fit into the average height bracket but my shoe size is substantially larger.

Contemplating my ever-expanding feet

This doesn’t bother me in the least. I was merely making an observation and making fun of myself and the fact that I now have bigger feet. However, I have to say that I was absolutely shocked at the number of y’all who found my post to be offensive!

Only one reader left an anonymous comment, proclaiming how annoying my “Big Foot” statement was, but I did receive quite a few emails– far more than I have ever received from a single post! In summary, y’all were pissed. The emails informed me that I was crazy and insulting for referring to size 9 as a large foot. I was even told to “get a clue” a few times.

The feet that started all the drama!

Guys, I swear, I have many clues….a whole brain full of them actually. I’m actually a pretty smart gal. However, I really don’t understand why saying I have big feet is insulting? From my perspective, I was just stating the obvious: for me, a size 9 is a large foot and my shoe size has dramatically increased. I’m fine with it. What is offensive about that?

The more I thought about this, I came to the conclusion that readers’ anger over this topic stems back to something more. Basically, I think there is a connotation that big = bad (unless you live in Texas!), especially when it comes to our physical appearance. If I said that my feet were tiny and mini-me sized, would y’all have gotten as offended? I hesitate to think that the reaction would be the same, but maybe I’m once again wrong here.

You tell me: what’s wrong with big feet? 

Why is that offensive? Am I just way off base here?