Originally Posted by grant hutchison

Intra-abdominal fat (the kind that gives you a bulging belly) is metabolically different from subcutaneous fat: it's resistant to the actions of insulin, for instance. Pound for pound, your coronary heart disease risk is higher with intra-abdominal fat than with subcutaneous fat. Males tend to deposit more fat intra-abdominally than women do, which is why you see more males with those disproportionate bulging bellies: a woman will likely lay the fat subcutaneously around hips and thighs instead.

Grant Hutchison