Foot supports are widely used to deal with a variety of biomechanical ailments of the feet and leg. These foot orthotics are inserts which are used in the footwear to attempt to adjust positioning of the feet in a way that they help disorders in the feet and leg. These complaints range from, for example, plantar fasciitis in the heel to medial stress syndrome that can happen in the legs of athletes. All the research evidence shows that the clinical results with foot inserts are usually good and most people that have foot orthotics are happy with them. Nevertheless, foot inserts are only ever be worthwhile if you actually use them. You do need to have appropriate shoes to wear them in and wear them for long enough for the problem they were issued for to get better.

Among the problems with foot inserts is that you simply need to use them in footwear. This may be a dilemma if you don't like wearing shoes or live in a hot environment in which the wearing of footwear is difficult. In these environments people like wearing jandals (known as ‘thongs’ in Australia) which you can simply not use with a foot supports. There are numerous options that are available. Among those is to reduce the time that you are not wearing the foot orthoses, so that you wear footwear with the orthotics enough and don't wear the sandals too much so that the painful problem does not occur. Another option is by using things such as the arch support sandals or jandals like the Archie Thongs from Australia. These have some arch support included in them and can generally be used instead of foot orthoses. Footwear like the Archies will most likely not be as effective as a properly made foot supports, however they could be more than satisfactory to supplement them and use when the proper shoes can't or will not be used.