A doctor orders an MRI or a CT. For most patients that’s the whole story: show up, get scanned, get the result. For a lot of fat patients, there’s a step nobody mentions — whether the machine at that particular clinic can actually hold them, or whether they’ll fit through the opening at all. Nobody tells you this in advance. You find out when you’re already on the table, or already turned away.
This isn’t a rare edge case. It’s routine variance in equipment specifications, and it’s bigger than most people assume, even inside a single well-resourced hospital.
The range, from one hospital’s own numbers
UCSF Radiology publishes its own size and weight limits by modality and by site, for clinicians referring patients. We read the table directly rather than a secondary summary. At UCSF alone, weight limits go from 400 lbs (181 kg) on some fluoroscopy units up to 705 lbs (320 kg) on the highest-capacity X-ray table, with CT ranging 450–675 lbs (204–306 kg) and MRI 450–550 lbs (204–249 kg) depending on the building. DEXA bone-density scanners are flat at 450 lbs (204 kg) everywhere at UCSF, no exceptions listed. Bore diameters for CT run 70–80 cm; for MRI, mostly 70 cm, with one site offering 80 cm “contact MR team.”
The point isn’t UCSF specifically. It’s that even within one system, which building you’re sent to can roughly double your odds of fitting, and nothing about a referral tells you which building that is.
The fix that exists, in the US
The FLARE Project runs a free, public database called In Our Image: a list of imaging facilities in the US organized by state, with the weight and bore-size specifications of their machines, so patients can find one that will actually work before they book. It began as a personal list kept by FLARE founder Brandie Solovay starting in 2019; FLARE’s legal fellow Ragen Chastain later expanded it into the public, searchable database it is now. It currently focuses on MRI, with CT and X-ray listed as planned additions. FLARE says outright that the list “is not comprehensive,” and asks patients and providers to submit facilities themselves.
One number is worth getting right: contributors are asked to submit facilities that accommodate patients at roughly 300 lbs (136 kg) and up. That’s pounds, not kilograms — a distinction worth being precise about, since 300 kg (roughly 660 lbs) would describe a very different, far smaller set of machines.
One disclosure belongs here regardless: FLARE, together with NAAFA, is the organizing body behind the Campaign for Size Freedom, a legal-advocacy campaign funded by Dove (Unilever) since 2023. We found no funding statement specific to the imaging database itself, but FLARE as an organization is not funded independently of that relationship, and readers should know it.
What we looked for in Germany, and didn’t find
We searched for a German equivalent: a patient-facing list of which clinics have imaging equipment rated for higher weights, sorted by region. We didn’t find one.
What exists instead is a different thing: directories of certified Adipositaszentren (obesity centers), maintained by the German Obesity Society (AGA) and the German Society for General and Visceral Surgery (DGAV), among others. These are real, and they’re useful — if what you’re looking for is bariatric surgery or a structured weight-management program. They are not a directory of where a fat person can get an ordinary MRI of their knee, referred for a reason that has nothing to do with their weight. Conflating the two would misstate what these directories are for, and this article isn’t recommending them as an answer to the imaging-access question, because they aren’t one.
For scale, and only as a historical illustration, not a current figure: in a 2005 report on a newly installed open MRI scanner at Bremen’s Klinikum Mitte, the radiology department’s Professor Terwey said the previous equipment meant they couldn’t examine even one patient a week who weighed more than roughly 150 kg. That’s twenty-one years old and says nothing about what a given German clinic can do today — equipment has moved on since — but it’s a concrete illustration of what “no matching machine nearby” has actually meant in practice, and it’s the kind of information that, if it existed for current equipment, would belong in a public list rather than a single 2005 newspaper clipping.
What the law actually gives you here
The original version of this idea pointed to § 630g of the German Civil Code, which covers a patient’s right to inspect their own treatment records after the fact. We read it. It’s about retrospective access to your file — it has nothing to do with what a clinic tells you about its equipment before an appointment, and we’re not going to cite it as if it did.
The closer fit is § 630c, paragraph 2: at the start of treatment, the provider must explain, in an understandable way, “all circumstances essential to the treatment” (alle für die Behandlung wesentlichen Umstände). We think whether the equipment can physically accommodate the patient is a reasonable reading of “essential to the treatment” — but no court ruling we found applies § 630c specifically to imaging-equipment capacity, so treat this as the provision that comes closest, not as settled law. This article is not legal advice.
A short list of questions, not a workaround
None of this is a reason to change how you look. It’s a reason to ask a clinic, before you book, rather than find out on the table:
- What is the maximum patient weight for this specific machine?
- What is the bore (tunnel) diameter, in centimeters?
- If this machine can’t accommodate me, is there another one nearby that can — and can you refer me there directly?
- Do you have an “open” MRI or a bariatric-rated CT/X-ray table on site?
Asking these isn’t oversharing or making a scene. It’s the same kind of practical question anyone asks before an appointment that depends on physical specifics — and it can save a wasted trip.
What this piece is not
This is not an argument that anyone should change their body to fit a machine. It’s the opposite: equipment access is infrastructure, and infrastructure that only works for some bodies is an access problem, not a body problem. This article does not recommend any clinic, device, or treatment, and it is not medical or legal advice.
Sources, read in full:
- UC San Francisco Radiology, “Imaging Modality Weight and Size Limits Information,” patient safety page for referring clinicians. https://radiology.ucsf.edu/patient-care/health-professionals/patient-safety-healthcare-professionals/size-and-weight-considerations-imaging-and-image-guided-interventions/info
- FLARE Project, “In Our Image – Finding Accessible Imaging for Fat Bodies.” https://www.flareproject.org/imaging/
- NAAFA, “FLARE’s In Our Image Database Connects Fat People with Accommodating Medical Imaging.” https://naafa.org/newsletter-articles/flares-in-our-image-database-connects-fat-people-with-accommodating-medical-imaging
- NAAFA, “Campaign for Size Freedom” (funding and partnership). https://naafa.org/sizefreedom · FLARE Project, “Size Freedom.” https://www.flareproject.org/size-freedom/
- Ärzte Zeitung, “Neues MRT-Gerät bietet genug Platz bei Adipositas oder Klaustrophobie,” January 27, 2005 (historical illustration only). https://www.aerztezeitung.de/Medizin/Neues-MRT-Geraet-bietet-genug-Platz-bei-Adipositas-oder-Klaustrophobie-331173.html
- Deutscher Bundestag / Bundesministerium der Justiz, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, § 630c (Mitwirkung der Vertragsparteien; Informationspflichten) and § 630g (Einsichtnahme in die Behandlungsakte), read in full via lxgesetze.de and buzer.de mirrors of the official text.
- Adipositas Gesellschaft (AGA), “Behandlungseinrichtungen (nach AGA zertifiziert).” https://adipositas-gesellschaft.de/aga/behandlungseinrichtungen/
Internal links: Article-11 (doctor blames weight), Article-12 (finding a weight-neutral doctor), Article-26 (weight-bias training). Rubrik: Discrimination.