Fewer pounds mean happier feet the Institute found that obese people are more than 40 percent more likely to have a current foot issue so doctor how significant is it when we talk about obesity and being a factor for pain and foot problems it’s a big factor obviously very big factors I mentioned earlier normal everyday walking you can exert up to 120 pounds percentage of force on your feet and when you run again three to five times force so with the more weight you have the more force is going on your feet and that accelerates the problems that you might have or you might not even have currently but it might force it to develop a lot sooner so keeping weight down is extremely important for your feet as well as other parts of your body obviously in fact you just mentioned that I mean we also know that obesity unfortunately can lead to diabetes which leads to even more foot complications pretty serious ones too so I guess the question doctor is do you have to lose a lot of weight to make a difference while shedding a few pounds even help or what would you say to folks about that I would say you have to start small you can’t lose 20 pounds overnight so little baby steps you know set realistic goals in order to achieve your big goal so small little steps you can take every single day to help you lose weight and then once you lose a little bit of weight sometimes you’re a little bit more motivated to even start exercising a little bit so it’s really a cyclical problem so the more weight you gain the slower you feel the less you feel like exercising and vice versa as well so you really really want to just start slowly lose that weight and you know what my goal is for everybody I tell them that if you can lose 10 percent of your body weight you’ll really make major changes your overall health especially your feet