Your priorities do change as you get older, and you can't eat for size and force-feed yourself the way that you did when you were younger. If you try, it does end up going much more to your waistline than it did when you were younger.
I went from a 155 lb high school senior to a 255 lb college senior, without ever touching steroids, just by force-feeding myself massive amounts of protein and calories (Mauro DiPasquale's Anabolic Diet was the big thing back then in the late 80s/early 90's.) Now I can't imagine and don't want to eat huge amounts of food like that. My life back then used to mostly consist of eating 6-7 meals per day, training, going to class, and sleeping, with plenty of time spent in the bathroom made necessary because of the huge quantity of food. Now that I am older, I have other priorities for my time, and other things that I would rather be doing than eating and shitting all day.
I always had a thick waist that helped me to deadlift and squat heavy, but the last few years from 45 to 50 years old it definitely does protrude more in the front, even when I am very lean...a moderate case of Palumboism. I am lean enough that I have prominent veins squiggling down my obliques and abs, but still the visceral fat makes my gut protrude in the front.
I have a small umbilical hernia from moving heavy furniture, so I am sure that doesn't help matters either. In the end, like most things in life it's the result of a combination of many factors: age-related decline in endogenous hormones and insulin resistance, HGH use, lifting heavy weights, and putting stress on the whole system by eating way too much for way too long.
But then we do many things when we are younger that we end up paying the price for as we get older.