Ditch ‘shrink it and pink it’ approach to women’s running shoes, manufacturers urged

Women’s foot anatomy, biomechanics, life stages completely different from men’s; female-based designs might boost women’s comfort, injury prevention, and performance

“If a shoe had been designed from a woman’s foot, would I be running without getting the injuries?”: running footwear needs and preferences of recreational and competitive women runners across the lifespan

BMJ Group

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Sports footwear manufacturers need to ditch the ‘shrink it and pink it’ approach to women’s running shoes, because this is failing to differentiate their distinct anatomical and biomechanical needs across the life course from those of men, concludes a small qualitative study published in the open access journal BMJ Open Sports & Exercise Medicine.

Female-, rather than male-based, designs might not only boost women runners’ comfort, but also enhance injury prevention, and their performance, say the researchers.

Over the past 50 years, manufacturers have invested billions of dollars on developing running shoes that can prevent injury, maximise comfort, and improve runners’ performance. 

Yet both industry and academic research to inform these advances has predominantly been designed for, and tested on, men and boys, point out the researchers.

Running shoes are designed by creating a three-dimensional foot-shaped mould called a ‘last, which is typically based on male foot anatomy, they explain. 

Most brands use the same last for their entire range, and beyond making the shoes smaller and changing the colour—a process known as ‘shrink it and pink it’—often only minimal modifications are made to create women’s shoes, they add.

The researchers therefore wanted to hear from recreational and competitive women runners which features they prioritise in a running shoe and how these might differ across the lifespan, with a view to informing future shoe design.

They recruited 21 study participants via posters displayed at local running stores in Vancouver, Canada, with the aim of including a broad range of ages, running experience, and weekly running volume and frequency.

Eleven of the women were recreational runners who clocked up a weekly average of 30 km; and 10 were competitive runners, who averaged 45 km. Nine of the women ran during pregnancy or soon after giving birth. Their ages ranged from 20 to 70, and their years of running experience ranged from 6 to 58.

The women were asked to rank in order of importance the factors informing their choice of running shoes. The responses showed that their primary considerations were the comfort and feel of the shoe, injury prevention, and performance.

In terms of comfort, most of them said they wanted a wider toe box, a narrower heel, and more cushioning; competitive runners also wanted shoes incorporating performance enhancing features, such as a carbon plate, as long as these didn’t compromise comfort.

The women said that they actively sought out running shoes that they believed would help prevent running injuries, and with this in mind, both groups emphasised the high value they placed on buying shoes from trusted retailers or personnel.

They highlighted the need for different shoe designs or components to align with different running contexts—taking part in races, training, speed work, or running with an injury, for example. 

And those who were mothers, reported needing a larger shoe size and wider fit as well as more support and cushioning during pregnancy and after giving birth. Competitive runners also said they needed added cushioning and support features in their footwear as they got older.

This study involved only a small number of participants, and the researchers acknowledge that participants came from a specific geographical area, which may limit the generalisability of the findings.

Nevertheless, they suggest: “Overall, our findings highlight a critical gap in the design of running footwear, which has been traditionally based on male anatomy and biomechanics.

“While participants did not always report an inability to find footwear, their narratives reflected a process of trial-and-error adaptation, often without guidance or purpose-built solutions. This suggests that their needs are not proactively addressed through current footwear design or communication.”

And they conclude: “We strongly recommend that the footwear industry should move beyond simply scaling down men’s shoes to fit women’s feet. Instead, there is a need for sex- and gender- specific designs that accommodate the distinct foot morphology of women and their social constructs and preferences, all of which evolve across the lifespan.” 

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Journal

BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine

DOI

10.1136/bmjsem-2025-002597 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

“If a shoe had been designed from a woman’s foot, would I be running without getting the injuries?”: running footwear needs and preferences of recreational and competitive women runners across the lifespan

Article Publication Date

14-Oct-2025

MASCULINITY IS TOXIC

Domestic abusers forge ‘trauma bonds’ with victims before violence begins

The Invisible Abuser: Attachment, Victimization, and Perpetrator Perception in Repeat Abuse

University of Cambridge

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• Study outlines tactical playbook deployed by male abusers to “weaponise love” based on in-depth interviews with victims.
   
• Current therapeutic approaches should move away from “victim pathology” and focus on “perpetrator strategy”, argues researcher.

Before going on to commit violence, domestic abusers use a mix of intense affection and emotional cruelty, combined with tales of their own childhood trauma, to generate a deep psychological hold that can feel like an “addiction” according to some victims. 

A new study by a University of Cambridge criminologist outlines a tactical playbook deployed by male abusers to engineer a “trauma bond”: an attachment based in cycles of threat and relief that leaves victims desperate for approval.

While this bond is typically viewed as a response to violent trauma, researcher Mags Lesiak argues it is, in fact, intentionally manufactured by perpetrators using strategic systems of control long before they leave visible marks.

As such, Lesiak says that recovery strategies relying on theories of codependency “shift blame onto victims” while ignoring the “deliberate brainwashing” by abusers.

For a study published in the journal Violence Against Women, Lesiak conducted extended interviews with eighteen women who had suffered repeated domestic violence during a relationship.   

To investigate the roots of attachment beyond “captivity” – the active threat of harm, or control via shared housing, children or finances – women recruited for the study were economically independent and often lived away from abusers during the relationship.

Importantly, the women’s relationships had all safely ended. Yet most held a seemingly inexplicable desire – even to themselves – to return to the abuser. Participants included doctors, a dentist, a science teacher and a chef. 

“Patterns of manipulation, grooming and coercion were so consistent it was as if all these women were talking about the same man,” said Lesiak, who is conducting a PhD at Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology.

“This is a distinct perpetrator profile. Specific techniques are used to construct and then weaponise love to produce a form of psychological captivity. As with the victims in this study, it can tether women to abusers even without physical or financial coercion.”

“Victim attachment to an abuser is not a passive trauma response, but the result of deliberate brainwashing by a perpetrator,” Lesiak said.

“The abuser’s psychological tactics can get obscured by ideas of codependency, which suggest that a victim is partly culpable due to something broken or masochistic within. Domestic abuse isn’t about victim pathology but perpetrator strategy.”

Lesiak, who spent a decade in frontline mental health and domestic violence services, identified three core themes running through the interviews. An experience all the women shared is what Lesiak terms the “two-faced soulmate”.

Abusers displayed an outward charm and often a fierce devotion to their partner, particularly early on. This gave way to cruelty, with verbal and then – months later – often physical abuse randomly juxtaposed with a return to warmth and affection.

“It fits patterns of intermittent reward and punishment, a staple of grooming,” said Lesiak. “Many women described classic love-bombing in the early stages. Some spoke of such intense happiness that other non-abusive relationships paled in comparison.”

“These relationships start with enchantment. The coercion and abuse that follows is so disorientating, it leaves victims desperate to preserve the earlier image of their abuser.”

Study participants all reported childhood trauma – from emotionally distant parents to sexual abuse. The perpetrators cultivated a sense of shared pain, coaxing personal histories out of the women by sharing accounts of their own traumatic childhoods.

This information was exploited by abusers as a tool of control, either to generate false intimacy, or through humiliation: belittling their partner over who had it worse, or using it to mock them in front of others.

“All the perpetrators co-opted the healing potential of mutual trauma to justify abuse, foster dependency, and obscure responsibility for their own actions,” said Lesiak.

Lastly, when asked how they felt about their former partner, most women compared their situation directly to addiction, and admitted retaining a compulsion to see their abuser despite clear cognitive understanding of this impulse as destructive.

“While it is uncomfortable, I must respect the language used by the participants, and it was explicitly that of addiction and craving. Several women related it directly to hard drug use,” said Lesiak. In fact, three study participants relocated to new cities just to reduce the chances they would reinitiate contact. 

“Abusers make sure their partners experience euphoric highs and desperate lows,” said Lesiak. “This creates a powerful psychological reward system that operates on the same logic as a slot machine, with unpredictable wins, sudden losses, and escalating self-blame.”

Lesiak argues that professional training for police and other frontline workers should include recognising non-physical forms of entrapment – such as the “two-faced soulmate” profile – as indicators of coercive control.

“All human bonds involve care, endurance, and sometimes pain. By coupling cycles of affection and cruelty with the exploitation of shared trauma, abusers create a bond they can use as a tool of control.”

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Journal

Violence Against Women

DOI

10.1177/10778012251379423 

Article Title

The Invisible Abuser: Attachment, Victimization, and Perpetrator Perception in Repeat Abuse

Article Publication Date

15-Oct-2025

 

UK food needs radical transformation on scale not seen since Second World War, new report finds

University of East Anglia

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Rapid and urgent action on food is needed if the UK is to reboot its flagging economy, save the NHS billions, ensure national food security, and meet climate commitments, according to a new report.

The Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050, calls for radical transformation, at a scale and pace not seen since the Second World War. It says if we do not act now, change will be forced upon us by increasing pressures and the UK will lurch from crisis to crisis, including from food price shocks, climate disasters and weakening economic productivity.

Acting now however, allows the UK to decide its own future, and must include three core transformations: more resilient farming, smarter land use, and healthier diets. Government must take the lead with “decisive and coordinated action”, says the report, and proposes 10 key recommendations and a timeline to 2050.

The report is published as renewed attention is being given to global food system transformation, including through the EAT-Lancet Commission’s latest report released earlier this month.

“Achieving this transformation has the power to deliver a food system where everyone in the UK has access to healthy and sustainable food,” said Neil Ward, Co-lead of the Agri-Food for Net Zero (AFN) Network+, which coordinated the report, and a professor at the University of East Anglia (UEA).  

“Through these three transformations we can reduce pressure on the NHS and help people lead healthier and more economically active lives. Nature will flourish, emissions will fall and farming will be more resilient and secure for future generations,” he said.

“Pressures from climate change, global shocks and poor diets mean significant change to our food system is inevitable over the next 50 years. However, if we act now, we still have time to shape our future, and positively impact national security, national health, economic growth and climate change. Our window to act is narrow though – if we do not, change will be forced on us by crisis,” added Professor Ward.

The report had input from 150 scientists and industry professionals from across research institutes, farming, charities and the food industry, and is the culmination of three years of work by the AFN Network+, a project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), with 3,000 members and led by a group of 11 universities and research institutes.

A system under pressure

The report highlights that the UK food system is a significant source of national greenhouse gas emissions and will become the largest source of emissions by the 2040s. Meanwhile, poor diets cost the economy £268 billion a year in direct healthcare costs as well as indirect costs such as low economic activity, and 7.2 million people now live in food-insecure households – an increase of 80% in just three years. Adding to these challenges, the UK is vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, since it is dependent on imports for 50% of vegetables and 85% of fruit, despite these being essential to healthy diets.

Transformation across three key areas

The Roadmap calls for transformation in three key areas:

• Stronger, more resilient farming: Supporting farmers to adapt to climate change, diversify business and grow more fruit, vegetables and wholegrains, reducing the need for imports.
• Smarter, more integrated land use: Expanding woodland cover from 14% to at least 20% of UK land by 2050, restoring peatlands and planning land use regionally to balance food, nature and climate.
• Healthier diets made easier: Making nutritious, sustainable food the easy and affordable option, while reducing reliance on imported and high-emission foods.

Urgent actions for government

The authors set out 10 priority actions, urging the government to work in partnership with farmers, food companies and local authorities. These include:

• Place food security on a par with energy security, equally essential to national security
• Set targets for dietary change and livestock numbers
• Create a National Food System Transformation Committee reporting to the Prime Minister
• Further reform agricultural subsidies to prioritise emissions reduction and carbon sequestration, alongside sustainable production and biodiversity

Tim Benton, Co-lead of the AFN Network+ and a professor at the University of Leeds, said: “Every year of delay makes transformation harder and more costly. We call on all parties, public institutions, industry and civil society to unite to drive forwards the transformations highlighted in this Roadmap. Change is coming to our food system, but how we shape it is our choice to make.”

Professor Charlotte Deane, Executive Chair of UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, said: “Agri-food remains one of the UK’s most stubborn sources of emissions.

“The AFN Network+ has brought together a powerful community of research leaders and stakeholders across UK agri-food, third sector organisations, policymakers and agri-food industry professionals to tackle this challenge and now delivered a clear roadmap for change.

“Our investment has resulted in a legacy of insights which will help shape future land use and food strategy, supporting the UK’s path to net zero.”

The Roadmap for Resilience: A UK Food Plan for 2050 was developed by the AFN Network+, drawing on insights from across its community of more than 3,000 members. The AFN Network+ is jointly led by UEA, the University of Leeds, University of York, and the University of the West of England.

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Article Publication Date

15-Oct-2025

 

Unveiling the impact of compound drought and wildfire events on PM2.5 air pollution in the era of climate change

Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH)

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image: 

The role of wildfires in changes in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations during drought periods

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Credit: POSTECH

POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) Professor Hyung Joo Lee’s research team, including integrated program students Min Young Shin and Na Rae Kim, has published the results of a study analyzing how the combined effects of droughts and wildfires influence fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in California, U.S., using 15 years of data. The study was published in the international environmental science journal Environment International.

 

PM2.5 refers to fine particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 micrometers (µm) or less. Because these particles can penetrate deep into the lungs when inhaled, causing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and even premature death, they are strictly regulated worldwide.

 

The research team focused on California because of its unique climate, characterized by frequent droughts and large-scale wildfires. Until now, however, few long-term, large-scale studies had investigated the combined effects of droughts and wildfires on air quality in this region.

 

Using air monitoring data and computer modeling from 2006 to 2020, the researchers showed that as drought severity increased (for each one-unit decrease in the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI), average PM2.5 concentrations rose by 1.5 µg/m³. More severe droughts also substantially raised wildfire risk, with each one-unit decrease in SPEI leading to approximately a 90% higher probability of wildfire occurrence. Under extreme drought conditions combined with wildfires, PM2.5 concentrations increased to an average of 9.5 µg/m³ compared to normal conditions.

 

The separate analysis of wildfire impacts was particularly striking: most of the PM2.5 increase associated with drought was actually due to wildfires. In cases where no wildfire occurred, even severe drought did not lead to notable changes in PM2.5 levels.

 

This study serves as a critical warning in the era of climate change. As climate change is expected to intensify the frequency and severity of droughts and wildfires worldwide—including in South Korea—protecting clean air will require not only the control of anthropogenic emissions but also comprehensive strategies that include wildfire prevention and management.

 

Professor Hyung Joo Lee of POSTECH stated, “This study quantitatively demonstrated the complex relationship between droughts, wildfires, and PM2.5 air pollution using long-term data. Since South Korea also experiences periodic droughts and has seen an increase in large-scale wildfires, the implications are highly significant.” He added, “Going forward, wildfire prevention and management will play a crucial role in improving air quality and protecting public health.”

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Journal

Environment International

DOI

10.1016/j.envint.2025.109678 

Article Title

Droughts and PM2.5 air pollution in California: the roles of wildfires

Carbon opportunities highlighted in Australia’s utilities sector  

Edith Cowan University

Australia’s utility sector accounts for some 43.1 per cent of the country’s carbon footprint, and some 37.2 per cent of its direct emissions, new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) has revealed.  

Dr Soheil Kazemian, from the ECU School of Business and Law, said the utilities sector included electricity generation, transmission and distribution, gas supply, water supply and waste collection and treatment.  

Electricity generation and transmission were identified as the most significant contributors within the utilities sector, with commercial services and manufacturing emerging as substantial sources of embodied emissions within the sector. 

The research revealed that 71 per cent of embodied emissions were attributed to electricity transmission, distribution, on-selling electricity, and electricity market operation. Electricity generation accounted for a further 15 per cent, while gas supply accounted for 5 per cent, water supply for 4 per cent, and waste services and treatment for the remaining 5 per cent of embodied emissions in the sector. 

“The study highlights electricity transmission and generation as the subsectors with the highest potential for adopting low-carbon technologies. By pinpointing emission hotspots and offering detailed sectoral disaggregation, the results of the research provide actionable insights for prioritising investment in emissions reduction strategies, advancing Australia’s sustainability goals and supporting global climate change mitigation,” Dr Kazemian said. 

He said that as with any other business, the pressure to reduce the carbon emissions footprint of the utility sector would need to originate from the consumer sector.  

Unlike other sectors, however, increased investment into the utilities sector is likely to result in a smaller carbon footprint.  

“This is a major difference between the different sectors in Australia. If you invest more into mining, that means the carbon footprint from that industry would increase, and the same can be said for manufacturing as the investment would result in expanded business. 

“While new infrastructure development can generate temporary increases in emissions for the utility sector during construction, the long-term impact depends on where those dollars are spent. Investment in renewable energy systems or efficient delivery networks can significantly cut emissions, whereas continuing to fund carbon-intensive energy sources risks locking in higher emissions for decades to come. 

 

“This complexity highlights a critical point that meaningful decarbonisation will depend not only on policy or technology, but also on consumer choices. When households and businesses demand cleaner energy, utilities are more likely to channel investment into low-carbon solutions. By consciously choosing renewable energy options and supporting sustainable providers, consumers can send a powerful market signal that accelerates the transition to a cleaner grid,” Dr Kazemian said.  

 

 

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Journal

Management of Environmental Quality An International Journal

DOI

10.1108/MEQ-07-2024-0311 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Determining the carbon footprint of Australia’s electricity, gas, water and waste services sector Open Access