Will I fit in the seat? The travel worry no one talks about

For a lot of people, the worst part of flying happens long before the gate. It arrives at the moment of booking, with the question: Will I fit in the seat?

Britain's first Seat Anxiety Index, a study of 3,000 UK adults by Numan, found that the middle seat on airplanes is the most dreaded in the country. Among people who are overweight or living with obesity, 34% named it the one they fear most, ahead of every plastic chair, bar stool, and cinema seat.¹

One in ten have avoided flying altogether, and when we asked what people would most like to get back, the top answer was the simplest one - to book a flight without worrying about the seat.¹

For some, the worry has a very specific shape. The seatbelt extender. The anxious word with the cabin crew. The hope that no one notices. It’s a small object that carries a lot of thought, and for many travellers it’s reason enough to stop flying.

A tax on simply sitting down

There’s a financial cost too. Around a third of people have paid, or considered paying, for more room when they travel: upgrades, extra legroom, a seat with a bit more space around it.¹ On average, that comes to £154, rising to £184 for men. Applied across the estimated 26 million UK adults who are overweight or living with obesity, it points to a national comfort tax of around £1.4 billion.²

The squeeze is real in another sense. Economy seats have lost roughly two inches of width since the 1990s, while the average UK waistline has grown by two to two and a half inches since the early 1990s.^3,4 The space is shrinking as we’re getting bigger, and the gap is felt most sharply at 35,000 feet.

Karen left the plane in pain

Karen Smallwood, a 60-year-old full-time carer from Chatham, knows that gap well. Terrified of taking up too much space and making the passenger beside her uncomfortable, she once spent hours sitting at an awkward angle rather than risk encroaching on the seat next to her. She left the plane in significant pain.

It wasn’t only flights. Karen had pulled back from social occasions and active days out, making excuses rather than face the discomfort she feared. Horse riding, something she loved, was off limits because of weight restrictions. Even finding a comfortable seat at an event had become a source of anxiety.

Behind it sat a serious health picture. Karen had been diagnosed with heart failure and was taking medication for high blood pressure, gout, and chronic pain. Her blood pressure was so high at one point that doctors considered admitting her to hospital.

“I really thought my life was over when they mentioned heart failure.”

After years of diets that didn’t hold, Karen had started looking into weight loss surgery when she found Numan's Weight Loss Programme, which combines evidence-based medication with support from clinicians and health experts. These days Karen runs 5Ks, goes trampolining with her four-year-old granddaughter, paddle boards, zip lines, and is preparing to get back on a horse for the first time in years.

“I just feel like a different person. Mentally, physically, emotionally, everything has changed. I've got my life back.”

* Individual results vary

What actually changes the experience

Here’s the part that matters most. The confidence to stop checking seat plans before you book, to stop arriving early for the right chair, to fly without the extender on your mind, doesn’t arrive the moment the weight goes. It comes from proper support over time.

That’s the difference clinical care makes. Medication can help people lose weight, and the options are better than they have ever been, with oral treatments now available as well as injections. But medication on its own is only part of it. Coaching, clinical follow-up, and the steady sense that someone has your back are what help the changes hold, and what help the worries about flying ease. 

The numan take

Seat anxiety isn’t vanity, and it’s not about one bad flight. It’s what happens when the world is built a little smaller than the people moving through it. The seats aren’t going to grow any time soon. But with the right support, the worry can shrink, and travel can go back to being something to look forward to.

References

1. Seat Anxiety Index (SAI), Numan, 2026. Nationally representative survey of 3,000 UK adults conducted by Censuswide, 16–18 June 2026, with detailed analysis of 1,197 respondents with a BMI of 25+. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society and the British Polling Council, and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. All percentages, the average £154 spend and the £1.4bn comfort-tax estimate derive from this study.  numan.com

2. UK adults living with overweight or obesity (basis for the ~26 million population applied to the comfort-tax estimate; 64.5% of adults in England were overweight or living with obesity in 2023–24): NHS England Digital, Health Survey for England, and House of Commons Library obesity statistics. The 26 million figure is Numan’s applied population estimate.  commonslibrary.parliament.uk — Obesity statistics

3. Adult overweight and obesity. NHS England Digital. [accessed 6 July 2026] Available from: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/health-survey-for-england/2022-part-2/adult-overweight-and-obesity

4. The case of the incredible shrinking airline seat. Flyersrights.org. [accessed 6 July 2026] Available from: https://flyersrights.org/f/the-case-of-the-incredible-shrinking-airline-seat