One of the biggest factors that determines where fat is stored in your body is your sex. Men tend to store fat around their abdomen, whereas women are more likely to store it on their thighs, bums and hips.
“From the point of view of childbirth and childrearing, having energy reserves in these areas is very useful because of the energy cost of pregnancy and the lactation that follows,” says Dr Adam Collins, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey.
“Hormonal differences influence our ability to store fat,” he says. According to some research, it could be the female sex hormone oestrogen, in particular, that plays a huge role in shaping body fat distribution. This means that premenopausal women – who have higher levels of oestrogen than others – are less likely to store fat in their abdomen and close to their vital organs. Consequently, they’re protected against the ill effects of being overweight, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, whereas men are more likely to develop these conditions earlier in life. However, after women reach menopause, their oestrogen levels decline. Such hormonal changes mean that they’ll develop more of a typical male pattern of fat deposition.