August summary

After tracking all of your comments and answers this is what everyone has come up with:

Women were more likely to see changes in abdominal fat because of the changes they experience in hormones in relation to menopause. As women get older there may be some slight changes in activity level and in addition women tend be emotional eaters and men are not.

In measuring waist circumference it is hard to make sure that people are always measuring at the same spot each time. There is too much room for error so BMI might be an easier choice. Some of you stated that maybe trying to get both BMI and waist circumference would be the best practice. BMI is a much easier and faster form of identifying bodyfat and getting doctors offices and other medical personnel to take the time to measure waist circumference may be very difficult. But what we really need to keep in mind is that BMI does not account for bone structure of muscle mass.

The points that were made about cereals were are very valid. Some of you commented on how many people do not eat a large amount of cereals. Most of the reason for this is because people still often skip breakfast and then those who do eat breakfast are probably not consuming mass quantities of them. In addition those who probably do eat cereals on a regular basis are probably also people who lead healthier lifestyles anyway and are consuming other lower calorie, low fat foods. Lets not forget about fiber. Many cereals have a decent amount of fiber in them. Fiber is something that aids in satiety, which would be a definite connection to keeping portion sizes in check.