Fat People Don't Make Good Witches???

Discipline, Liberation, and the Fat Witch

Recently, I came across a discussion claiming that fat people cannot be effective witches because they supposedly lack discipline. The argument suggested that if someone cannot control their body, they cannot control their mind, their will, or their magic.

As a fat witch, I find myself reflecting on a much larger question: What do we mean when we talk about discipline?

For many people, discipline is synonymous with restriction. It is measured by deprivation, self-denial, and the ability to resist desire. This understanding has deep roots in Christian concepts of piety, where virtue is often demonstrated through sacrifice, abstinence, and mastery over the flesh. It is rooted in Stoicism. And it also exists within modern beauty culture, which praises thinness as evidence of moral success and treats larger bodies as proof of failure.

But that is not the tradition from which my magic emerges.

My practice is not rooted in restriction. It is rooted in liberation.

Historically, magic has often been the tool of those who existed outside systems of power. It has been practiced by the marginalized, the poor, the overlooked, and the oppressed. Folk magic was not born from luxury, perfection, or conformity. It was born from the human desire to reclaim agency in a world that sought to deny it.

To me, magic is not about becoming smaller. It is about becoming more fully yourself.

When I hear people equate discipline with body size, I cannot help but think about the countless forms of discipline they overlook.

There is discipline in learning to silence the cruel voice that lives in your head after years of being told you are not enough.

There is discipline in looking in the mirror and refusing to participate in your own degradation.

There is discipline in choosing self-respect over self-hatred.

There is discipline in refusing to measure your worth against standards that were never designed for your flourishing.

The greatest act of discipline in my life was not changing my body. It was changing my mind.

It was learning to stop speaking to myself with contempt.

It was untangling years of shame, religious conditioning, patriarchal expectations, and Eurocentric beauty standards that taught me my value was conditional. It was learning that my body is not a moral statement. It is not evidence of virtue or vice. It is simply the vessel through which I experience this life and practice my craft.

That work required more willpower than any diet I have ever attempted.

My confidence did not arrive because I transformed my body into something society deemed acceptable. It arrived because I liberated myself from the belief that I needed permission to exist comfortably in my own skin.

That is where my magic lives.

Not in restriction.

Not in punishment.

Not in constant self-surveillance.

But in the daily practice of freedom.

A witch's power has never come from how closely she conforms to cultural expectations. It comes from her ability to know herself, to shape her reality, and to direct her will toward meaningful change.

I possess discipline.

It simply does not look like deprivation.

It looks like self-trust.

It looks like resilience.

It looks like refusing to surrender my sense of worth to people who mistake conformity for wisdom.

And perhaps most importantly, it looks like understanding that liberation itself is a magical act.

If my magic has taught me anything over the years, it is this: the most powerful spell I have ever cast was the one that convinced me I was worthy exactly as I am.

This version reads more like an essay from an experienced practitioner sharing wisdom rather than engaging in online discourse, which often gives the message more longevity and authority.