Are Fat People Disabled or Are Disabled People Fat?

There is a question people ask quietly, sometimes without even realising they are asking it. It lives in looks, assumptions, and comments muttered under breath. It sounds like concern, but it is actually judgement. It goes something like this: why are so many fat people in pain? Why are so many fat people using mobility aids? Why are so many fat people struggling to move?

And underneath that question sits a far more dangerous one. Is this what happens when you let yourself go?

It is a comforting story for people who are currently well. It suggests that disability is preventable, controllable, avoidable. That if you eat correctly, move enough, stay disciplined and make the right choices, your body will never betray you. It will never slow you down. It will never stop working. It will never put you in pain.

That story is a myth. And it is one we cling to because the truth is far more frightening.

I want to talk about fatness and disability not as abstract concepts, but as lived realities. I want to talk about what happens when your body hurts so much that movement stops being joyful and starts being something you have to negotiate with. I want to talk about what happens when people see your body and assume they know the cause of your pain, your size, and your limits. And I want to ask the question people rarely want to answer honestly. Are fat people disabled, or are disabled people fat?

For several years, I struggled to walk. Not in a vague, uncomfortable way, but in a way that made movement feel like wading through wet cement. Some days I struggled to move at all. Pain and fatigue dictated the boundaries of my world. I am thankfully in a good cycle with my condition now, but my condition is lifelong. This is not a before and after story where wellness arrives and stays forever. It is a story about fluctuation, unpredictability, and learning how fragile ability really is.

When you live like this, you notice how obsessed people are with blame.

There is a deeply ingrained belief that fatness causes disability. That fat people struggle to walk because they are fat. That wheelchairs and mobility scooters are the inevitable outcome of poor lifestyle choices. It is said casually, sometimes cruelly, sometimes framed as concern. But it all points in the same direction. If you did this to yourself, then I do not have to worry about it happening to me.

Blame is comforting. Blame allows people to believe they are safe.

But the logic falls apart the moment you actually sit with it. How much exercise can you do if you cannot move without pain? How much joy does movement bring into your life if every step costs you tomorrow? How much weight would you gain if you ate exactly what you eat now but were confined to a bed or a sofa for most of the day?

Able bodied people often underestimate how much unconscious movement they do. Walking while thinking. Standing while cooking. Pacing during phone calls. Carrying things from room to room. These movements burn energy without being labelled as exercise. Remove them, and the body adapts accordingly. Not because of laziness. Not because of gluttony. Because biology does not care about morality.

This is where the narrative flips, and where people get uncomfortable.

Disability often precedes weight gain, not the other way around. Chronic pain reduces mobility. Fatigue reduces stamina. Medications alter metabolism, appetite, and hormones. Hormonal conditions affect how bodies store fat. And mental health struggles born from illness can change eating patterns in ways that have nothing to do with willpower.

Yet fat disabled people are rarely believed. Their pain is dismissed. Their symptoms are blamed on their weight. They are told to lose weight before they are offered treatment, support, or even basic compassion. Disability becomes conditional on thinness, as though suffering must be aesthetic to be valid.

Thin disabled people are pitied. Fat disabled people are blamed.

And the reason people cling so hard to this blame is simple. It protects them from a truth they do not want to face.

Disability is not a punishment for unhealthy living. It is a natural outcome of being human.

You either die young, or you live long enough to experience disability in some form. Joints wear down. Eyesight changes. Hearing fades. Autoimmune conditions develop. Accidents happen. Illness does not check your diet history before it arrives. Ageing does not care how many steps you averaged on your fitness tracker.

The idea that health is a permanent state you can earn and keep is one of the most damaging myths our culture perpetuates. Wellness culture sells the fantasy that if you do everything right, your body will never fail you. That disability only happens to other people. That fatness is a warning sign rather than a neutral physical trait.

This fantasy keeps able bodied people calm and keeps disabled people isolated.

Because if disability is always someone else’s fault, then society never has to prepare for it. Buildings do not need to be accessible. Workplaces do not need to be flexible. Healthcare does not need to listen. We can just point to bodies and say that is where it went wrong.

But bodies do not fail because they are immoral.

When you cannot move, the loss is not just physical. Movement is connection. It is autonomy. It is joy. It is independence. Losing it is a grief that deserves recognition, not judgement. And when fatness enters that picture, the grief is compounded by shame imposed from the outside.

People assume fat disabled bodies are problems to be solved rather than lives to be supported. They assume weight loss is the universal answer, ignoring the reality that sustained weight loss is exceptionally difficult even for healthy bodies, let alone bodies in pain. They ignore the fact that weight cycling itself can worsen health outcomes. They ignore the fact that many disabled people would love to move more, not to shrink themselves, but because movement feels good when it is accessible.

Fatness and disability are not enemies. They are often co travellers.

They also do not exist in a vacuum. Access to healthcare, money, time, safe housing, and supportive workplaces all shape how bodies experience illness and weight. When people reduce everything to personal responsibility, they erase these realities. They also erase the voices of people who are living this every day.

So when someone asks whether fat people are disabled or disabled people are fat, the honest answer is that sometimes the categories overlap. Sometimes they do not. And sometimes the question itself is the problem.

Because it assumes bodies must be sorted into neat moral categories. Good and bad. Responsible and irresponsible. Deserving and undeserving.

What if we stopped doing that?

What if instead of asking who is to blame, we asked how to make movement accessible at every size. How to make healthcare compassionate regardless of weight. How to design a world that assumes disability is part of the human experience, not a failure to be avoided.

Because one day, if you are lucky enough to live long enough, your body will change too.

And when it does, you will want understanding, not judgement. You will want support, not lectures. You will want to be seen as human, not as a warning.

Fat people are not cautionary tales. Disabled people are not failures. And fat disabled people are not lessons in what not to become.

They are living proof that bodies are complex, fragile, adaptive, and worthy of dignity at every stage.

If this makes you uncomfortable, good. Discomfort is often the beginning of honesty.

I want to know what you think. Have you noticed these assumptions in yourself or others? Have you lived in a body that changed faster than the world around you could keep up with? Do you think society would treat disability differently if we stopped pretending it could be avoided?

Let’s talk about it.