Although the causes of diabetes are still unknown, medical science does know that certain factors contribute to its development. One factor is heredity. You may have a tendency to development diabetes because other members of your family have it. A child of nondiabetics can become diabetic, however, since the disease may skip generations because of genetic coding that prevents it from appearing in every generation. Stresses that affect the cell of the body seem to set the stage for diabetes in these people. One such stress is extra weight. Obesity, affecting insulin utilization, contributes to diabetes.