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Size appears to run in families and the probability that a child will be overweight is related to their parents’ weight. For example, having one obese parent results in a 40 percent chance of producing an obese child, and having two obese parents results in an 80 percent chance. Parents and children, however, share both their environment and genetics so this likeness could be due to either factor. To address this problem, research has examined twins and adoptees. In general, researchers believe that there is a role for genetics for both weight and where body fat is stored (upper versus lower body), that a mother’s weight is a better predictor of her child’s weight than that of the father, and that the role of genetics gets less as a person’s BMI gets larger. But genetics cannot explain the dramatic increase in obesity over the past 30 years, why a person’s body weight changes as they migrate from one country to the next, and why body weights are more similar within peer groups than within biological families.