Why are most of the elderly short?

As people age the cartilage between the bones shrink/compress and people become shorter. They also lose bone mass. Considering that small dogs outlive big dogs, maybe that also applies to people.

1. People didn't grow quite as tall even a few generations ago. 2. Cartilage compresses. 3. Osteoporosis--bone density loss. 4. Spinal curvature. This can be due to 2 or 3, or just accumulated years of poor posture.

Their bones shrink makes them shorter

There are a number of reasons for the height difference:

Cartlidge deteriation between the bones, particularly those normally under greatest compression (spine, knees, hips)
Inability to replace bodily material due to age (skin/hair/etc) can reduce the apparent height (albeit a small amount)
Weakening of muscle tone, particularly in the neck and back, brings the head downwards.
Diet today is better (if you can resist fast food enough) which promotes the taller human today.
Transport and communication improvements have enabled a widening of the gene pool over the last century or so - you no longer have to make do with humping the pick of the village women - we can fly around the world and mate with healthier (who are usually taller) partners. If your town is full of short people it's easy to travel elsewhere for some lanky muff...
Old people don't wear the same footwear as younger people (thankfully!) so heels are gone in favour of flat shoes... again only a small difference but one all the same

I could mention a host of other things - effects of stress for example...ill health, money worries, death of spouse etc all cause stress and hunching of shoulders/hanging of head, even in the young and fit and are all prevalent in the life of the elderly.

Anyway..... hope that's helped.....

Bone deteriation

No one wants to help a tall senior man/woman across the street

People are getting taller over time as a result of improved nutrition in childhood and young adulthood. Today's old people would have been considered quite tall two centuries ago.

The elderly today grew up before the 1950s, people didn't have as much animal protein in their diet then. The effect is more stark in places where people traditionally didn't consume much animal protein - average height has increased dramatically with each generation as meat/poultry/dairy has become a greater part of their diets.When human beings ceased being hunter-gatherers and agriculture began, human beings on the whole became shorter, now the reverse is the trend.

This is good question. It is because when you get old you get this thing where your bones start to shrink as your marrow starts to disappear. So you start becoming smaller. This is a sign that they are going to die. So this is very disappointing to people who notice it happening.

We shrink a bit with age.

The simplest thing to say is that their bones shrink.

they shrink

Because usually young people around them still haven't got their bones partially crushed and pulled down by gravity.And see them as shorter than themselves,not just because of a phisical thing,but also because of perceptions.
All ill and weak adults somehow look smaller to a healthy strong adult in his/her prime.
It's true.
Shorter than who?
Everyone uses his own image to measure the world.And if you don't,you end up feeling inferior than somebody else who's called a model.The prototype everyone wants to be.
Still in the hunchback thing uh?
You dumb idiot!bones don't get shorter because of osteoporosis.It's because of little things in between bones.Cartilagineous joints.They slowly fade away.Wear off.Become less elastic.And kind of,screw you!
I don't wanna show off my culture.

SHORT PEOPLE LIVE LONGER! MWA HAHAH MWA HAHAHAHA!!

Google: Osteoporosis

The answer lies there.

Every generation is getting taller these days.

Older people were a shorter generation then these last generations.

They also have a tendency to shrink.

Bone loss, hunch back.

I feel like my mom has shrunk. Every time I hug her she just seems smaller and smaller.

Their dicks are much bigger however.

Bone mass decreases especially in the spine

it is most common in women...after delivering a child their bones becomes weak and starts shrinking with age...in man it takes more time to get weaker because they dont gomthrough these things

If it is Stress then I should be an inch Tall ^

All the stress on their shoulders!

People lose bone mass as they age.

Take a calcium supplement.

Loss of bone mass.

because when ur young u grow up, when ur old u grow down :)

It's called degenerative disk disease. The older you get the more the disks between your vertebrae wear and tear making you appear to shrink. No way around it.

The "shock absorber" plates between the spinal bones are pressed together during the life. This makes old people look several inches shorter. In addition, many are hunched over. Finally, the average height was lower in their youth.

They actually do shrink. My grandmother isn't a hunch back and she used to be around 5'6 but is now only a mere 5'2. My grandfather was around 5'10 in his younger years, but was only around 5'6 later on - now deceased. =[

It doesn't seem like the OP knows the real reason why old people are short because the truth/fact isn't one of the options.

It's like what JustDave wrote. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think anything else.

Basically what JustDave said.

Ever heard about how you are taller in the morning than in the evening? Thats because you have all the gravity pushing down on your head, so the bones in your back push together a bit, making you shorter.

Because old people have (obviously) been around longer, it would have more of a permanent effect on them.

They shrink when they get old thsts why they have these old people take all these special vitamins

OLD AGE! Everyone shrinks as they get older for many and whatever reasons. I was 6'8" when I was younger; now they tell me I am 6'5" tall. 59 years old and still going.

what if all the tall people just die sooner? simple right?