The world of orthopedic surgery in Southern California is full of fascinating stories. Although the Southland is widely considered America’s cosmetic surgery capital, it isn’t widely known that the surgeons of San Diego and its neighbors also tend perform a number of other elective surgeries.

This news story caught the eye of many of you: a piece in the New York Times about a trend to improve the aesthetic and structural beauty of patients’ feet. One cannot make up some of the extraordinary branding terms that lard the article from top to bottom, including such gems as “toebesity” and “Cinderella procedure.” The purpose of these procedures is to fulfill a timeless desire; one doctor calls them:

“the final frontier” for those who have had work done on their faces. “My practice has exploded because of Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin and Nicholas Kirkwood,” he said in a recent phone interview. “There’s nothing like opening a shoe closet that’s been closed to somebody for years.”

Suffice it to say, your foot is a complex mechanical structure that must bear and redirect hundreds of pounds every minute. Altering the basic geometry or stability of a foot to fit into a pair of shoes is a dangerous game. Far better to find ways you can achieve the look you want without altering an essentially functional body part.

As an orthopedic surgeon, I can say with confidence: Those feet were made for walking.