In Pulp Fiction Bruce’s wife decides she wants a pot belly.
I assume she means that bulge that starts below her belly button (that many girls have). Other girls have a curved, round belly that starts the curve under their breasts and goes all the way down.
What causes the former?
Could it be high-fibre? It seems to me that the bulge starts about the same place as the large intestine?
Oh, you mean a “gunt?” It’s caused by beer.
It’s the uterus inside that causes the typical feminine belly curve.
I think it’s partly hereditary. I’m pretty thin (BMI 20.9), but I have the rounded belly under my belly button. My mom has it too, and even though she is matronly now, I’ve seen pictures of her in a swimsuit when she was stick-thin at 5’8" and 128 lbs., and she still had that rounded tummy. Some women just store fat there.
Pregnancy can really exaggerate the “pooch” too. All those over-stressed and over-stretched muscles can be almost impossible to get back into shape.
Rocketeer:
For anyone who wasn’t aware, the uterus is roughly 1"x2"x3" prior to pregnancy - on a rough par with the male prostate. Think of 3-4 large brazil nuts (in their shell, and you wouldn’t be terribly far off. (After pregnancy, its size can vary depending on many factors.)
I mention this because many people, including women (and myself, once upon a time), have a mistaken impression of how large the nongravid uterus is. The first time I held one in my hand, I knew the numbers, but I was still surprised at how tiny it was.
Because of its small size, the nongravid uterus sits much lower and deeper than most people think. Even in pregnancy, it’s not as large as people imagine until the second half. It starts plum-sized, and well below the rim of the “true” pelvis (a cup-shaped rim down in the bottom of the combined “hipbone” called “the pelvis” - the vast majority of which is anatomically known as the “false pelvis”)
At 6 weeks, it’s egg-sized; at 8 week it’s the size of a small orange; at 10 weeks, the size of a large orange. It usually can’t be felt (palpated) over the rim of the symphysis pubis (the bone in the front of your pelvis). It reaches the umbilicus (belly button) by the 20-22 weeks (just before the fetus becomes potentially viable)
Therefore, ‘the pooch’ which begins well above the pubic bone and goes up to the bellybutton is unlikely to be caused by the uterus. Many women who have never been pregnant - or for that matter, many teenagers and some preteens have ‘the pooch’.
In many women, it seems familial. In some (familial or not), it can be conditioned away by targeted exercise of the lowest abdominal muscle bands. I have no idea how one would go about cultivating one.