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How having a disability became cool
Young women, nicknamed ‘sickfluencers’, are turning chronic illness into a lifestyle trend and entrenching a culture of economic inactivity
Poppy Coburn Associate Comment Editor
Published 05 September 2026
Perhaps you’ve seen it on a news segment on television about a transgender rights march, where every other attendee appears to be supported by a walking stick.
Or perhaps you’ve heard about it in your family WhatsApp group, when your sister tells you about your seemingly healthy niece’s new condition.
If you still haven’t noticed it, your daughter surely can’t have escaped the bravely smiling young women on Instagram, their profiles decked out in acronyms.
POTS. ME. CF. ADHD. MDD. GAD. PMDD. EDS. FND.
For a steadily growing group of British young women, these acronyms – and the conditions they represent – are fundamental to their lives.
The country is sicker than it’s ever been before, and it’s not afraid of shouting about it. Disability is changing.
To many, it is no longer an adversity to overcome, but a social identity akin to one’s sexuality, gender, or race; an immutable reality to be celebrated by the subject and accommodated by the rest of us.
One in four British people is now disabled, according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Family Resources Survey.
To put this figure in context, this is a higher rate of disability than witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
The growth in those identifying as disabled does not reflect a sudden, shocking increase in the number of paraplegics. The twin driving factors are, instead: mental health disorders and chronic conditions.
They can be hard to “prove” and harder to effectively treat, and are more likely to be experienced by young women.
A cohort of young people – somewhat cruelly dubbed “sickfluencers” – want to tell you about their conditions and convince you they are real. Like the rest of my generation, they broadcast their struggles to an online community of like-minded individuals.
But, were they not decked out in the accessories of their disease, it would be impossible to perceive the conditions they consider to be so central to their interaction with the world.
This week, Dr Lesley Kavi, a former GP and chair of Pots UK, said that cases have significantly increased since the pandemic, but “half of patients are told that their symptoms are all in their head”.
She added: “When they describe so many symptoms at one time, and the doctors don’t think to test for Pots, they assume the problem is psychological.”
But, says O’Sullivan, there is no “demonstrable pathology or proof of a nervous system disorder.
There is no pathology to prove a diagnosis”. It’s hardly surprising, then, that the rising number of women identifying as having Pots – with its relatable list of symptoms – is a prime example of what some doctors worry is an epidemic of overdiagnosis.
Dr Katie Musgrave, a general practitioner, has seen this phenomenon first-hand.
She describes a “hyper-awareness of physical symptoms like fatigue and a racing heart” from patients who visit her seeking an explanation for their pain, with an expectation that there will be a single, incontrovertible diagnosis.
Often though, she says, it is more likely that factors such as “a lack of sleep and exercise and a poor diet” are causing the patient’s symptoms, and these can be resolved with minimal medical intervention.
Some women, however, do not accept such a verdict. Invariably, these individuals have already decided they have a certain condition before they see a doctor, and if the GP refuses to validate their beliefs, they “seek out a private specialist and get a diagnosis of an unusual condition,” says Musgrave.
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