OBJECTIVES:  There is a worldwide epidemic of obesity. We are just beginning to understand its consequences for child obesity. This paper addresses one important component of the crisis – namely the extent to which obesity – or more generally – adiposity - is passed down from one generation to the next. METHODS:  Using the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a measure of adiposity, we estimate the elasticity of intergenerational transmission using ordinary least squares, quantile analysis and fixed effects analysis. We use data from around the world: British 1970 Cohort Studies (BCS1970), Health Survey for England (HSE 1995-2010), National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the US (NHNAES 1988-1994), the Spanish National Health Survey (ENS-2006), the Survey for the Evaluation of Urban Households (ENCELURB 2002, 2004 and 2009) data in Mexico, China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS 1989-2009) and Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS 1993, 2000 and 2007) RESULTS: We find that the elasticity of intergenerational transmission is very similar across countries and relatively constant – at 0.2 per parent. Our substantive finding is that this elasticity is very comparable across time and countries - even if these countries are at very different stages of economic development. Quantile analysis suggests that this intergenerational transmission mechanism is substantively different across the distribution of children’s BMI - more than double for the fattest children what it is for the thinnest children. CONCLUSIONS: Our evidence from different countries’ data suggests that there is a strong consistency in the IBE estimates across countries, the research puts the emphasis firmly on the family in terms of understanding the considerable fraction of adiposity determination, it also has major implications for public health measures addressed at tackling the growing childhood obesity.