Abstract Childhood obesity is one of the major global public health challenges and has a profound impact on the physical and mental health of children and adolescents. The article summarizes the establishment of gut microbiota in early life and the influences of early nutritional status and feeding patterns, maternal and infant microbiota transmission, delivery methods and the use of antibiotics on gut microbiota and childhood obesity. The paper focuses on the possibility of using the structural characteristics of gut microbiota (gene richness and evenness, relative abundance ratio and key indicator bacteria) as potential interventional targets and predictors of intervention effects in childhood obesity, and introduces the application of probiotics and other biological agents, as well as fecal microbiota transfer for the childhood obesity intervention, and briefly describes the latest progress in the mechanism of gut microbiota and childhood obesity, so as to provide the reference for the precise prevention and control of childhood obesity.