I recently stumbled upon fitness tik tok, and the sheer number of people admitting to engorging themselves one week then absolutely starving themselves another is really wild. Supposedly the goal is to get "cut", but it really feels like what wrestlers used to do in my high school lol
It definitely can be, and a lot of bodybuilders develop eating disorders. It's also an easy way to cover for an eating disorder. That said, Renaissance Periodization has a lot of info on how to do it healthy (track calories precisely, limit your surplus and deficit to 500 kcals, maintain 6 weeks for every 6 weeks you cut, etc.)
That said, it stems from the same weight and image focused culture that eating disorders stem from, it's just slightly less harmful than diet culture. I'm cutting now and a lot happier than I was doing dumb shit to make weight for wrestling, let's put it that way. That said, cutting definitely is a politically not great activity and I don't encourage it. This is purely for my vanity.
its a little bit 'a square is a rectangle but a rectangle isnt a square' sort of thing, because it absolutely can be an eating disorder but I dont think it automatically is.