The Saddest Birthday Ever: Starring My Anti-health Family Yesterday was my birthday. For the past several years, birthdays have never gone well for me. Every year, I tell my mom, "I don't want a cake for my birthday." Every year, she buys or makes one anyway. It's not that I dislike the taste of cake, I just don't think a celebration is a reason to overeat things with little nutritional value.  Despite explaining this to her again and again, my mom has made it a rule in our house that everyone (meaning me, because everyone else would eat cake anyway) has to eat cake every time there's a birthday. Luckily my family is small. I can handle eating cake 4 times a year - one slice won't kill me - but I shouldn't have to, especially on my own birthday. For my 13th birthday (after I said I didn't want a cake), my mom made a "special" ice cream cake just for me, thinking I would love it and be happily surprised. I was not. It took me at least 4 days to finish, and left me feeling sick and gross. She was so proud of her creation. Now, a couple years later, I told her again that I did not want cake for my birthday. Not an option. She told me I had to have a dessert with real sugar in it for my birthday, or else she would send me to an eating disorder treatment center. Meanwhile, my father is "happily" obese (begrudgingly following a doctor-ordered "low carb" diet), and she's not too slim herself. Nobody needed cake. But of course, tradition and gluttony are more important than respecting their child's wishes.  On my birthday, as expected, my mom made giant vanilla cupcakes (but called them muffins, because there was "only" 3/4 cup of sugar in the recipe). She took one, dumped a glob of whipped cream on it, put a strawberry on top, and proudly presented it to me with a candle stuck in the center. Not my proudest moment, but I lost it. I cried. My family rushed through the sloppy "happy birthday" song, then ran away to eat their cupcakes. My mom got all passive aggressive toward me about how "offended" she was that I didn't like the cupcake I repeatedly told her not to make.  It wasn't the cupcake itself that bothered me. I wasn't upset because I couldn't handle eating a cupcake. I was upset because my mom doesn't care about my actual health at all. She's always telling me I need to gain weight (I'm at a healthy weight for my height) and "not eat so healthy all the time". I run six days a week, so I need proper nutrition. She only cares about me getting "enough" calories. She's never told my father to eat less or exercise more. She accepts him for being fat. But she doesn't accept me for being a normal-sized girl who wants to have a long, healthy life. It makes me really angry that a fat body is acceptable to her, but not a healthy body. Sorry for the rant, but that's my experience in a pro-fat family. My mom is still mad at me for not having a happy-enough birthday and ruining her celebration.