The region reports sure exagerate things a lot. I look at the duchy report and it is horrible: no patriotism, morale rock bottom. Then I look at the region status and it doesn't look bad at all considering the said region has been starving for days: control core, production good, loyalty friendly, morale stoic.
True the status went down bit each day but not fast enough to completly ruin status before it could be fed.
Having your region looted seems to drop status a lot faster, yet the reports don't make such a tragedy out of it.