Broken Foot Causes

• Bones usually break when something happens to crush, bend, twist, or stretch the bone.
  
  
  • Toes are often broken when you accidentally kick something hard.
    
    
  • Heels are often broken when you fall from a height and land on your feet.
    
    
  • Other bones in the foot sometimes break when you twist or sprain an ankle.
  
  
• Most bones break suddenly during an accident or immediate injury. Occasionally, small cracks can form in bones over a long period of time from repeated stress on the bones. These are called stress fractures. They occur most commonly in soldiers hiking in full gear or in athletes such as dancers, runners, and gymnasts.
  
  
• Broken bones are more common in children than in adults.
  
  
  • In adults, bones are stronger than ligaments (which connect bones to other bones) and tendons (which connect bones to muscles). But in children, ligaments and tendons are relatively stronger than bone or cartilage. As a result, injuries that may only cause a sprain in an adult may cause a broken bone in a child. However, a child's forefoot is generally flexible and very resilient to injuries of any kind.
    
    
  • When metatarsal or phalangeal fractures do occur, they may be difficult to recognize because many parts of a growing child's bone do not show up well on x-rays. For this reason, it is sometimes helpful to get x-rays of the child's other, uninjured foot to compare to the hurt foot.