The latest barbie Chic blue polka dot crop top, ruffled mini skirt, thick heels and slay with an insulin pump. She is the first doll on the brand of type 1 diabetes.
Dollmaker Mattel collaborated with the groundbreaking T1D, previously known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, to design dolls aimed at representing around 304,000 children and teens in the United States along with type 1 diabetes.
The doll was launched Tuesday at the breakthrough of T1D Children’s Congress, a three-day event in Washington. This year, they are asking Congress to renew funding for the special diabetes program, originally allocated by Congress in 1997. Current funding for the program will end after September.
Advocacy efforts have sparked new urgency this year. After deep cutting of federally funded projects in recent months, Breakthrough T1D said he is worried to see if the funds will be rescinded again.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body accidentally attacks its own organs and tissues. In this case, rogue antibodies chase the cells in the pancreas that make insulin, an essential hormone that helps the body turn food into energy. As a result, the body does not produce enough insulin of its own, so people must take insulin at the injection or pump to survive.
Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in childhood, but can be diagnosed by anyone of all ages. It’s different to type 2 diabetes, people can still make insulin, but their cells stop responding to it.
In addition to the insulin pump that sticks to the new Barbie’s waist, the beauty of chestnut hair has a continuous glucose monitor in her arms. Her phone will display an app showing her glucose readings. She also has a light blue wallet to hold her supplies and snacks to help her manage her blood sugar levels all day. Of course, it matches her shoes.
Emily Mazrek, director of marketing and communications for Breakthrough T1D, worked with Type 1 diabetes and worked with Mattel to design the doll. The Barbie phone app displays a snapshot of actual blood sugar readings from the day during the design process. Barbie’s blood sugar level is 130 milligrams of sugar per blood decilitor, which is in the normal range. Most people with diabetes try to maintain blood sugar levels between 70 and 180 mg/dl. The continuous glucose monitor has a graph showing the heights and low values that can occur during the day. Blue polka dots nod to the colours and symbols for diabetes recognition.
Mazreku spent nearly two years keeping focus groups to get feedback on the doll’s features and making sure it represents the entire type 1 diabetes community.
“Mattel came close to us and they wanted this to be part of their fashionista line,” Mazrek said. “And we immediately jumped at the opportunity.”
The line has over 175 different appearances, including various skin tones, eyes, and hair colors. It includes Barbie with behind the scenes hearing aids, a blind man with a cane, and another doll with prosthetic legs. There are also dolls with vitiligo, which is a condition in which the skin loses pigment and becomes spotted.
In an email to CNN, Mattel spokesman Devin Duff said:
The company said the blind Barbie and Down syndrome dolls were one of the most popular fashionista dolls in the world in 2024.
The company launched its first doll in 1997 with a Disability, a friend of Barbie called Share-a-Smile Becky, who used a wheelchair.
Dr. Sian Jones, co-founder of the Toy Box Diversity Lab at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland, said that insights are part of the value of playing with dolls with disabilities for children.
Jones and her colleague Dr. Claire Wightman are studying how playing with dolls and toys on a variety of physical challenges can reduce systemic inequality among people with disabilities.
This is based on the theory of mirrors and windows by Rudine Sims Bishop, professor of education at Ohio State University. Bishop realized that having diverse characters in a book is a good thing for all children. Children in minority groups help to put mirrors into the lives of characters in the book, give children windows into the lives of others, and help build empathy.
Jones says when children play with dolls with mobility challenges, for example, it helps them identify and understand the struggles of people with disabilities they encounter in real life.
“Barbie, a wheelchair, cannot use a doll’s house in kindergarten classrooms, so for example, she needs to build a lamp so she can access the doors of the doll’s house,” said Jones, who lives with cerebral palsy.
When she began working on incorporating disabled dolls into the school curriculum, Jones said there was little to buy. She mainly had to make them herself. Now she can buy them from big companies like LEGO and Mattel.
Mazrek says the work of designing the doll is worth it. She recently brought home to give her 3-year-old daughter.
“I gave her the opportunity to take Barbie home and interact with her and see her,” Mazrek said. “And she looked at me and said, ‘She looks like a mom.’ And it was very special to me. ”
Her daughter does not have type 1 diabetes, she said. “But she sees me every day, lives with it, expresses the world, understands it, and wears my device with confidence.
