In der New York Times sind am Sonntag, allerdings nur in verschiedenen "Lokalteilen", zwei längere Artikel zum Barfußlaufen erschienen.

Gruß

beka

New York Times, 19.5.2002 (New Jersey Edition)
Free the Florsheim 10!
In the not too distant past, the last day of school not only signaled the end of homework and tests, but also the start of a long stretch of foot liberation. Shoes were thrown into the back of the closet, not to be reunited with feet until after Labor Day. Today, children are being given summer assignments to keep their brains sharp during those long, sultry months. Worse yet, they are being ordered to keep their shoes on.
From lawn chemicals to broken glass to the possibility of viral infections, parents are wrapping one more layer of protective coating around their over-shielded progeny by insisting they wear shoes everywhere they go. This cautious attitude is enthusiastically supported by everyone from convenience store owners, who post signs saying "no shirts, no shoes, no service" to the American Podiatric Medical Association, which includes "don't go barefoot" in its list of foot health dos and don'ts.
The potential for harm is boundless. There is athlete's foot, a fungus that breeds in damp places like public pools or locker rooms; plantar warts, a virus caught by walking barefoot on dirty surfaces; cutaneous larval migrans, which are hookworms from dog droppings that tunnel beneath the skin; not to mention chemical reactions to herbicides, stubbed toes, sunburned arches, splinters, cuts, bumps and bruises, all a result of failing to protect the foot.
But there is another side to the argument, which says going barefoot is a natural and healthy way to live. Advocates say this belief is especially applicable to children's feet, which, to grow properly and develop necessary musculature and balance, need to be free of the constant constraint of shoes. These freethinkers, while far less numerous than shoe proponents, have been building communities, courtesy of the Internet, with names like the Society for Barefoot Living, the Barefoot Hikers, Parents of Barefoot Children and the Dirty Sole Society.
"Going barefoot is an incredible feeling," said David Margules of Maywood, N.J., a member of the Dirty Sole Society. "You get so much sensation it makes you feel invigorated for the rest of the day." By day, Mr. Margules, 45, is a freelance photographer who has spent the last seven months photographing 3,500 images in and around the site of what was the World Trade Center. He hasn't ventured into ground zero barefoot -- "That would be insane" -- nor does he bare his toes on most of his professional assignments: "I'm not going to impose it on somebody." In his personal life, however, he goes barefoot every chance he gets. This means barefoot forays in the snow to get the mail, and shoeless summer strolls around New York City, once the soles of his feet have really toughened up.
While city streets pose several challenges to a barefoot walker -- hot pavement, glass shards and syringes, to name a few -- those inviting pool decks and lush green lawns in the country bring their own hidden risks, said Dr. Frederick Foti, a dermatologist. One of his patients, an avid golfer, breaks out in a severe rash around her ankles every time she golfs on one particularly chemical-laden course in New Jersey. Though the problem is less common with residential lawns, Dr. Foti said he did see patients suffering from "allergic contact dermatitis," a reaction to the herbicides used by lawn services. Speaking of lawn hazards, no one likes stepping in dog droppings, and doing it barefoot carries an added danger, Dr. Foti said. Baby hookworms from infected feces can penetrate the foot's sole, then tunnel beneath the skin's surface looking for an escape route. After six to eight weeks, though, the worm dies and is absorbed, causing no further problems.
Summer is a busy time for Dr. Howard Abramsohn, a South Jersey podiatrist, who sees a surge in athlete's foot and foot injuries, often from going barefoot. He firmly believes that going barefoot is not healthier. "You don't build up strength by going barefoot, you just increase the likelihood of having a deformity," Dr. Abramsohn said. "The foot needs to have some room to move, but it also has to have some support for proper development." Where barefooters see calluses and blackened soles as a badge of honor, Dr. Abramsohn sees these as evidence of "an abnormal way of walking."
Those are fighting words to barefooters, especially those who have made the right to go barefoot a political cause. The Society for Barefoot Living posts a list of "barefoot facts" on its Web site: "It is healthy for your feet to go barefoot." "It is not against the law to go barefoot into any kind of establishment, including restaurants." (Restaurants do have the right to forbid barefoot customers from entering, however.) "It is also not against any health regulations." "It is not against the law to drive barefoot."
Christopher Roat, membership chairman for organization and the head of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Delaware chapter of Barefoot Hikers, sees the public's attitude toward going barefoot as a reflection of today's society. "People are a little more cautious, a little more removed from society and more separate from nature, feeling we need more protection and to protect our kids more," Mr. Roat said. "Throughout history, people have gone barefoot. Most of the things that are now dangerous to bare feet are things that we put there."
Jill P. Capuzzo

New York Times, 19.5. 2002 (Long Island Edition)
A Rite of Summer: Going Barefoot
Someday soon, researchers may discover that people who go barefoot in summer live longer. Or die younger, or have more or fewer heart attacks, or suffer more or less from depression. Whatever they find, we who are hard-core Long Island shoeless will not curl our toes over it. For us, baring the feet at the first hint of warm weather is a part of the seasonal cycle as natural as the blooming of flowers in spring, surely a benefit and one of life's leading pleasures.
Indeed, for many gripped by an addiction to barefootedness learned in childhood and deep in memory, there is really very little choice. When summer comes, shoes must go. Barefoot we stand at every opportunity, saying with our shoelessness that we are at our leisure and in our more perfectly animal state, connected to the earth with nothing in between, our mashed toes at last liberated from long confinement.
Let people say what they will. We know in our hearts that the way of the bare foot is a sure path to well-being, one that is quick, easy and free. It's also amusing, with its comically off-putting effect on the uninitiated who are missing out on all the fun. With its grassy lawns and spun-sugar ocean beaches, Long Island was meant to be the land of the shoeless in the summer, and largely is. Witness the barefoot crowds on our beaches, walking free, soles to sand.
There are, of course, pitfalls. Lawns preternaturally green may be doused with pesticides and unsuitable for barefooted cavorting. Stepped-on bees will sting. Beaches baking in the sun give hotfoots. While we may kick off shoes and go about in stocking feet in permissive workplaces, bare feet even there are beyond the pale. In indoor public places they will raise eyebrows and bring eviction.
But the rewards in other settings are great. There may be no more languid, all-consuming sense of tactile pleasure than walking in bare feet through soft grass on a late summer afternoon. And is there a child on Long Island who has not stood at the edge of the ocean surf, watching the wet sand cover tiny feet as waves recede? No, this is a birthright of the beach proud, strangers to rocky shores.
Going barefoot on woodland trails, parking lot asphalt or driveway gravel hurts a little at first. Each spring our winter feet emerge soft and vulnerable and we mince rather than walk over these harder surfaces. But before long a leathery skin, thicker by the day, builds on the bottom. By midsummer we are ready for burning coals or at least hot sand.
When our barefoot days are over, let us die with our boots off.
John Rather