The effect of national traditional sports on weight loss and blood lipid health of overweight and obese students: Meta analysis

Background

The problem of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents around the world is serious, and traditional intervention methods have problems such as poor compliance. Traditional ethnic sports (such as martial arts and tai chi) combined with physical and mental exercise and cultural elements may provide a new way for obesity management, but there is a lack of systematic evaluation.

A systematic literature search was conducted in twelve electronic databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, MEDLINE, EBSCO, CINAHL, OVID, Embase, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, CNKI, ProQuest) from inception to March 12, 2025. Randomized controlled trials of ethnic traditional sports interventions in overweight or obese students (age 7.6–23 years; BMI > 23.9 kg/m²) were eligible, yielding twelve RCTs (n = 520). Two reviewers independently screened studies, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias using the Cochrane RoB tool.

Across 12 RCTs (n = 520), ethnic traditional sports interventions did not significantly alter body weight (WMD = –0.115 kg; 95% CI: –0.30 to 0.07; p = 0.233) or waist circumference (WMD = –0.34 cm; 95% CI: –0.82 to 0.13; p = 0.156), but yielded significant reductions in BMI (WMD = –0.33 kg/m²; 95% CI: –0.60 to –0.06; p = 0.016) and body fat percentage (WMD = –0.31%; 95% CI: –0.52 to –0.10; p = 0.004). In lipid profiles, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol increased (WMD = 0.33 mmol/L; 95% CI: 0.05 to 0.61; p = 0.020), whereas total cholesterol (WMD = –0.01 mmol/L; p = 0.952), triglycerides (WMD = 0.33 mmol/L; p = 0.468) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (WMD = 0.03 mmol/L; p = 0.828) remained unchanged. Subgroup analyses indicated that Chinese traditional exercises (e.g. Tai Chi, Kung Fu) produced more pronounced reductions in BMI and body fat than other modalities.

Conclusion

National traditional sports can effectively improve the BMI, body fat rate and HDL-C level of overweight and obese students. It is a potential intervention method. In the future, it is necessary to further standardize the program and expand the research sample.