Olympic Combat Sports as Weight-Management Interventions in Non-Athlete Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

The official combat sports in the Olympic Games include fencing, taekwondo, wrestling, judo, boxing, and karate. Most current research indicates that participation in Olympic combat sports significantly improves the physical fitness of children and adolescents, but specific studies on its weight loss effects in this population remain relatively limited. This systematic review evaluated controlled Olympic combat-sport interventions for weight management and body composition in non-athlete children and adolescents.

We searched five databases and platforms: PubMed, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, Web of Science (Core Collection), and Embase, up to 3 November 2025. Eleven reports met the eligibility criteria.

Four reports involved overweight or obese youth (three taekwondo and one judo intervention), and seven involved normal-weight participants (six judo and one taekwondo intervention). The studies differed substantially in populations, comparators, outcome definitions, and reporting. Reported within-group changes in body mass, BMI, and adiposity-related outcomes cannot alone establish comparative intervention effects. Among overweight or obese youth, the available taekwondo reports described favourable changes in selected adiposity-related outcomes, whereas evidence for judo and findings among normal-weight participants were inconsistent. In normal-weight children, changes in absolute body mass require interpretation alongside growth, maturation, and body-composition measures.

The available evidence is limited, heterogeneous, and requires design-appropriate risk-of-bias reassessment. It does not support conclusions about fencing, boxing, wrestling, or karate. Future controlled trials should report prespecified, age- and sex-adjusted outcomes, complete between-group analyses, and adverse events.