Childhood obesity has adverse health and productivity consequences and it poses negativeexternalities to health services. To shed light on the role of parents, we elicit parental beliefs aboutthe returns and the persistence of a healthy diet and exercise routine in childhood. Parents believeboth types of investments to improve child and adult health outcomes. Consistent with a model oftaste formation, parents believe that childhood health behaviors persist into adulthood. We showthat perceived returns are predictive of health investments and outcomes, and that less educatedparents view the returns to health investments to be lower. Our descriptive evidence suggests thatbeliefs contribute to the socioeconomic inequality in health outcomes and the intergenerationaltransmission of obesity.