Marti Stelling, 22, from Sheffield, is an MA Journalism student at the University of Sheffield. She has family members who live with diabetes and says film and TV shows often get it wrong when it comes to diabetes. Here, she breaks down the occasions when films and TV shows get diabetes right, but also when they get it wrong and why it can be harmful to people living with diabetes.
It is usually not possible to tell that someone has diabetes, so it’s important for there to be accurate representation in the mainstream media.
Notable films featuring diabetes include Steel Magnolias, the 1989 film where Julia Roberts plays Shelby, a young woman with type 1 diabetes who’s dealing with family stresses alongside complications, and Panic Room, where Jodie Foster must break out of a hidden chamber in her house to save her daughter from a hypo.
For some people, films and TV shows might be the first representation they see of diabetes, so it’s disappointing when the condition is depicted in a way that’s inaccurate or plays into misconceptions. Unfortunately, diabetes is often treated as a punchline.
In 2019, a dish on an episode of The Great British Bake Off was referred to as a “diabetes on a plate”. While this comment was not meant to cause harm, it reinforces misconceptions about diabetes and could cause a viewer to believe that diabetes is caused by eating too much sugar.
Does sugar cause diabetes?
Sugar does not cause type 1 diabetes, there’s nothing you can do to prevent type 1. In type 1 diabetes, the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas are destroyed by your immune system. We don’t know the exact cause of type 1 diabetes.
With type 2 diabetes, the answer is a little more complex. Though we know sugar doesn’t directly cause type 2 diabetes, you are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes if you are overweight. You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body needs, and sugary foods and drinks contain a lot of calories. So if a diet high in sugar is causing you to gain weight then you are increasing your risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
But type 2 diabetes is complex and it doesn’t just affect people living with overweight and obesity, there are many reasons why type 2 diabetes develops. Find more about what causes type 2 diabetes.
If a bus drove around town with an advert that said, “sugary cereals give you diabetes”, there would be a national outcry. But when film and TV shows make less direct statements like this, it can be just as damaging.
In many shows, inaccurate portrayals could be due to a lack of research into diabetes. In the drama series Virgin River, a character with diabetes says she doesn’t use insulin because she’s tired of injections. But she’s then given a sugary drink, which it’s implied is to treat a hypo.
Accurate representation
Accurate representation is not only important so people can learn to recognise symptoms of diabetes sooner, and get a diagnosis, but also for young people with diabetes who deserve to see themselves represented on screen.
Recent great examples of accurate representation include characters like Stacey McGill from the children’s show The Babysitters Club, who wears a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and insulin pump. These details make it clear the character has diabetes, but this isn’t her defining characteristic.
The technical supervisor of Pixar’s Turning Red, Susan Fong, has lived experience with diabetes. While the condition is not a central element to the film’s storyline, two of the characters can be seen wearing CGMs.
And, when Coronation Street introduced a storyline where teenager Summer Spellman (pictured, centre) was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, they worked with Diabetes UK’s experts and people with lived experience to represent the condition as accurately as possible.
Overall, representation of diabetes in the media seems to be improving. More children will grow up seeing people with diabetes on the screen and hopefully this will lead to better awareness. Diabetes doesn’t have to be the star of the show, but if it's portrayed responsibly, a lot of unnecessary drama could be avoided.
Diabetes UK has guidance for TV producers to support showing diabetes accurately and sensitively. If you see any portrayal of the condition that is inaccurate or upsetting, please call our Helpline on 0345 123 2399.
