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Heroin chic is in? Reflective poem by a core trainee working in child and adolescent mental health services – poem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2023

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Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

The media screams, ‘Heroin chic is in’,
So I must try, try, try to be ultra thin.
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’
So I had better restrict my meals.
Thin is in, and being fat is obscene,
Constant repetition in the pages of a magazine.
Counting calories is the way to a better you,
Helpfully, the government puts them on every menu.
Walk 10 000 steps a day,
Maybe 20, what's getting in the way?
No carbs, no fat, nothing is a treat,
You will feel better when you control what you eat.
‘Heroin chic is in’ they say,
Watch the number on the scales fade away.
I can't eat this, I can't have that,
45 kilograms is way too fat.
The guilt and shame of having dinner,
I need to cut down, I must be thinner.
They are calling it anorexia now,
My secret friend somehow.
I'm stuck in hospital and feeling breathless,
I can't go to the bathroom on my own, I'm on chair rest.
It has taken my period, my independence and all things fun,
But ‘heroin chic is in’, so who has really won?
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