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It depends on what you mean by shredded? If you’re talking about competition-state bodybuilders they starve and dehydrate themselves to get that look just before competition, which is certainly not healthy.
Professional athletes aren’t going to those extremes, but do live and breathe fitness for their jobs. That’s generally not dangerous because their diet and exercise forms are carefully managed and damage tends to build up in competition, where you don’t get to do things in perfect form.
As the other response mentioned, it depends on what you mean by “shredded”
For professional athletes, their output is so extremely high and their nutrition and recovery is so perfectly tuned that it’s natural to maintain a relatively low body fat percentage. That combined with above average lean mass and they’re gonna look pretty dang shredded. I’d estimate that most of your shredded-looking pro athletes are in the 10-14% body fat range which is totally sustainable long-term.
Now in terms of “body building shredded” (meaning veins popping out, dehydrated, etc) a professional body builder will only look “competition lean” for a few days once every year or two. To maintain a BF% in the low single digits (like under 7-8%) is extremely taxing on your system. None of them walk around looking like they do during an actual competition.
For women, maintaining a very low body fat percentage has some negative effects on reproductive “health.” A lot of high level women’s athletes struggle to have a normal menstrual cycle (if they even have one at all) which is likely a biological response to their abnormally low body fat. It doesn’t mean they can’t stay lean/shredded year around but it’s another thing to consider that men don’t have to account for.
The amount of muscle isn’t what’s dangerous, its the lack of water and body fat that is. Being an athlete doesn’t put that level of stress on your body, but body builders before a show get their body fat and water weight dangerously low. Being able to perform athletic acts and having good shown muscles are two different things.
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