In the 2023 “Barbie” movie, Margot Robbie’s character recoils in horror when her perfectly arched feet touch the ground. “Flat feet!” she gasps, as if she’s been cursed. It was a punchline. But for a team of podiatrists and researchers in Australia, it was a research question.

They looked at modern dolls and noticed that a lot of them actually had flat feet instead of the “traditional” arched ones. They started wondering: when did Barbie’s feet actually start to flatten?

So, they turned to the data — 2,750 Barbie dolls, to be exact — and found something surprising. Since the doll’s high-heeled debut in 1959, Barbie’s posture has shifted dramatically. While she once stood perpetually on her tip toes, today she’s far more likely to stand on flat feet. And that shift says more about society than it does about Barbie.

We have a weird relationship with our shoes. Most of us don’t just wear them for comfort; we also wear them for style or status. We use them to send a message, that we’re cool, fashionable, or we like a particular cultural trend. It’s a strange phenomenon, but plenty of people prioritize style even when shoes are uncomfortable.

“We regularly hear our patients assign labels to their footwear, like “these are my bad shoes” while still choosing to wear them for other non-comfort benefits,” says Professor Cylie Williams, from Monash University, to ZME Science. Williams and colleagues thought Barbie’s evolution might tell a similar story.