The 'menopause middle' is a phrase that slips off the tongue a little too well, but I don’t really like it. Why? Because it makes a plump abdomen sound inevitable. Like it’s a fate we can’t dodge, that it’s inexorably entwined with middle age. But why does it get there in the first place?
In perimenopause and post-menopause, levels of the hormones oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone fall, become a bit of a mess and trigger a catalogue of metabolic changes in the female body. Among these is a change in fat distribution.
