Parental nutrition can program the metabolism of offspring, creating stable changes in physiology that may have significant health consequences later in life. We have previously reported that offspring exposed to maternal obesity in utero exhibit a latent predisposition for metabolic disease in adulthood that is associated with widespread epigenetic changes. Our most recent work demonstrates that a latent metabolic phenotype is also conferred by being born of an obese father. While offspring consuming a healthy diet avoid overt disease, they can pass the disease predisposition on to their own offspring, despite having no metabolic symptoms themselves. This inheritance is accompanied by changes to the small RNA composition of sperm that may affect embryonic development.