Studies that have focused on inheritance patterns rather than on specific genes have found that 80% of the offspring of two obese parents were also obese, in contrast to less than 10% of the offspring of two parents who were of normal weight.
Za ljudi z dvema kopijama gena FTO (gena, ki je povezan z maščobno maso in debelostjo) so ugotovili, da v povprečju tehtajo 3–4 kg več od ljudi brez tveganega alela in da imajo 1,67-krat večje tveganje za debelost.