Q: Comment on Q275: fat distribution is different for everyone. when some people gain weight a lot of it can go to the stomach and for other people it is better distributed. my brother in law has a better body fat percentage than me but he has more stomach fat than me.

A: If you are talking about plain old subcutaneous fat on your stomach (which is not the same as the visceral fat that's been getting some publicity as a health risk), the I am going to disagree with you. If your brother has a significantly lower BF% than you (say, 4+ percent less than you), then it is HUGELY unlikely that he has more stomach fat than you, no matter what the appearance is (assuming you and him are roughly same height/weight). If you're within 1-2% of his BF%, then I suppose it's possible his fat distribution is such that he carries more than you on his stomach. But the more the difference between your BF% and his, the less likely is that you'll have less subcutaneous stomach fat.

But again, subcutaneous fat (immediately under the skin) is not the same as visceral fat (deep around your organs). Visceral fat is the one that's getting a lot of press now as being high health risk. And visceral fat can be lost through exercise the same way as subcutaneous fat, so lowering your overall BF% will lower your visceral fat unless some other health problem occurs that encourages visceral fat buildup. So, going back to you original question/point, there's still no reason to say that an 11% BF person may be less healthy than a 16% BF person unless you know for sure that he has some other serious medical problems. Yes, it is theoretically possible that he's less healthy but it's VERY unlikely, all other things being equal.