My grandmother was a tall strong farm women who I greatly admired.  Yet as she aged, around the time of my grade school years, she began to shrink.  By the time college came around she was stooped over and had lost over 8 inches in height – from a tall (for her generation) 5 foot 9 to barely 5 feet tall.  Her clothes fit oddly due to the large hump in her back.  She had an official diagnosis of osteoporosis. 

There are plenty of concerning statistics on the prevalence of bone loss in our population.  Here are a few: