RESEARCH ARTICLE


Foot Pressure Distribution Variation in Pre-obese, Obese and Non-obese Individuals – Forensic Implications



Kewal Krishan1, *, Tanuj Kanchan2
1 Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
2 Department of Forensic Medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal University, India


© 2014 Krishan and Kanchan.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Sector-14, Chandigarh, India; Tel: +919876048205; E-mail: gargkk@yahoo.com


Abstract

The present commentary refers to recent research on the plantar pressure distribution variation in pre-obese, obese and non-obese adult individuals. While the studies observe significant changes in the contact area in the mid foot region i.e. instep region, no statistically significant differences were observed in the pressure distribution of the fore-foot and hind-foot region among the pre-obese and non-obese groups. Thus, the pressure distribution of the sole of the individuals depends upon the body weight of the individuals. In this commentary, we emphasize that the results of these studies; besides their clinical implications, have applications in forensic sciences especially in the field of forensic podiatry too which is concerned with the examination of pedal evidence recovered at the crime scene.

Keywords: Plantar pressure distribution, Forensic podiatry, Personal identification.