Kind of a stupid question, I admit. I’m well above average height, and while certainly tall people are rare, I’ve seen many a person in my life that I can look at eye-to-eye. However, I can’t seem to recall having ever seen an eldery person any where near that same height.
Where are all the 6’5"+ octogenarians? I know people shrink as they age, but can it really be that substantial? Will I one day be “normal” height?
The Master speaks:
There’s an elderly (probably in his '80s) man in my neighborhood. He’s very stoop-shouldered, probably from osteoporosis, and stands about 6’1-6’2". He looks like, if he could straighten up, he’d be about a foot taller.
Thanks for that. I should have known the Perfect Master would be up for it. Sounds like I’m not going to die.
My grandfather’s pretty tall, although he’s also hunched over a bit. He’s 82.
Also, remember-old people shrink.
I did remember that, which is why I put it in the OP. 
But, I might add, not *everything *shrinks.
I’ve known some women who have lost five or six inches. I don’t know about men.
I’m 63 and I’ve lost an inch already. My mother has lost four inches.
I used to work at a retirement home and I for the most part towered above all the residents at my not-so-tall height of 5’10’’. There were a few residents who although they were hunched over were taller than me and I have no doubt that in their prime they were very tall. What surprised me more was the old woman who was taller than me and looked like her back was still perfectly straight.
My grandfather used to be 1’93… something like 6’1"
For Spanish standards and for his age group, that was very tall. His own father, who was a bit shorter, got to serve his military service in the Royal Guard because he was one of the six tallest recruits that year.
I say Gramps used to be 1’93 because he’s now at 1’80 if he doesn’t straighten. Not only has he “shrunk” but he also hunches, which he didn’t use to do. Straightening brings him back to 1’87. He’s 92 and gets commonly taken for late seventies.
1’93 is 6’5" aprox, sorry.
My Da was 6’2" in his ‘prime’, he’s now [83y/o] very very stooped and if he manages to stand up he’s a head shorter than me (6’2")
I see quite a few tall old people in this community. Lots of old, Dutch farmers, etc.
Yeah, my dad was 6’1" in his prime, but shrank to well under 6’ before he died at age 84. (At 6’4", I towered over him in his later years.)
So I think shrinkage is the answer to the OP.
Don’t forget, people who are elderly now are products of a time when people were shorter on average. Morever, here in the States at least, people in their seventies and eighties spent their formative years during the Great Depression, and might have had nutritional deficits as children. In other words, don’t necessarily judge from the old people you see around you.
My father in his youth was 5’ 10" – maybe a shade taller. I never made it past 5’9". Pictures of us together clearly show that he was at least an inch taller than I.
By the time he died, he couldn’t have been taller than 5’7" – and he still stood as straight as ever.
Chuck is an auto restorer in my hometown. He is 80, leathery as a freaking armadillo, has had two lung cancer surgeries and still lights one with another. But he still stands 6’3" and straight as the Army Ranger he was in WW2.
Goodness me. I’m 22, and this has convinced me to start taking that Boniva stuff and popping calcium chews like they’re candy. At 5’2", I’m already looking up to most of the world. I can’t imagine what 4’8" would be like.
My father-in-law is about 6’4". He’s 72. My dad was 6’8", but he died in 1974. I guess if he was still alive, he’d be a “tall old guy” now. He’d be about 76.
Tall is good - unless you have Marfan syndrome. I used to have an e-friend who had it. Before knowing her, I’d never heard of it. Lincoln is possibly the most famous person ever to have had it. People with Marfan tend not to live very long.
Bear in mind that in many cases, the people who are now old grew up in a time when their height was unusual. When I was in school, tall kids tended to slump in order to try to minimize their height.
My mother noticed early on that I was going to be tall like her (she was 5’7½"), and she started right away adjuring me to stand straight. I didn’t quite make 5’8", but that was still much taller than average for that time (1960s) - I was one of the three tallest girls in high school. The three of us used to walk through the halls together. I think we felt less conspicuous together (of course it may have been exactly the opposite), 
but nobody ever commented. I see young women today who are 6’, and most of them stand straight. I think that women’s basketball has something to do with it. Whatever the reason, I’m glad to see it; they’re beautiful.
A British friend of mine’s father is still about 6’, and Jack is now 95 or 96. Of course, he used to be biology headmaster in a large school.
I’ve lost more than an inch, but I have severe osteoarthritis - DISH (Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis), which destroys the cartilage, and also lost the cartilage out of my knees. I still stand as straight as I am able, and have found through the years that there were more advantages than disadvantages in being tall.