ABSTRACT
Objective@#To evaluate the effectiveness of aerobic exercise, resistance exercise, and aerobic combined resistance exercise on body composition among overweight and obese children and adolescents, to provide more comprehensive and effective evidences for overweight/obesity intervention research and practice in children and adolescents.@*Methods@#Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) regarding exercises on body composition among children and adolescents with overweight and obesity published before December 31th, 2020 were searched in databases of CNKI, Wanfang, PubMed, Web of Science. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed risk of bias of included studies. Stata 15.1 and RevMan 5.0 were used for statistical analysis.@*Results@#A total of 38 RCTs were included. The effectiveness of exercise on BMI reduction among overweight/obese children and adolescents were in the following rankings: combined exercise [ MD =-1.25(-1.76--0.74), P ＜0.05], aerobic exercise [ MD =-0.87(-1.23--0.52), P ＜0.05], resistance exercise [ MD =-0.58(-1.06--0.10), P ＜0.05]. The effectiveness of exercise on body fat percentage reduction among overweight/obese children and adolescents were in the following rankings: combined exercise [ MD =-4.02(-5.60--2.44), P ＜0.05], resistance exercise [ MD =-2.89(-4.62--1.16), P ＜0.05], aerobic exercise [ MD =-1.88(-3.14--0.62), P ＜0.05].@*Conclusion@#Aerobic training combined with resistance training is the most effective exercise to improve body composition for children and adolescents with overweight and obesity. When formulating exercise prescription,atrobic combined with resistance exercise can be used as the first choice for overweight and obese children and adolescents.