A model for the steady laminar flow of an incompressible fluid through a deformable gel-coated channel with slowly varying tapered shape is presented. Previous work has shown that the flow rate through such a channel is less than that which would be expected from the Hagen-Poiseuille equation (1973, J. Lahav, N. Eliezer, and A. Silberberg, Biorheology 10, 595; 1979, P. Krindel and A. Silberberg, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 71, 39). Krindel and Silberberg also observed the onset of turbulent flow at lower rates than would normally be expected; they attributed these phenomena to a turbulent boundary layer near the channel walls. Our analysis shows that the rate reduction is in fact due to kinetic energy effects related to the converging flowlines. A model to describe this rate reduction is presented and is shown to agree well with experimental results, successfully predicting the observed flow rate reduction over Reynolds numbers ranging from 1 to 1000. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.