This article picks up the history of US-American Fat Men’s Clubs to analyze ambivalent meanings of body fat in the decades around 1900. These clubs – and the newspaper reports about them – are remarkable because they operated in an historical period in which the meaning of body fat changed. At that time, fatness came to symbolize excessive consumption and sickness. However, it could nevertheless point to success and efficiency. Body fat was highly contested and fluid – and with it were understandings of ability and capable selves. From the perspective of critical ability studies, the article ex-plores how fatness served as a site of conflicts over modernity and progress, consump-tion, productivity and health.