Hunger

It was a very interesting discussion I had with colleagues.

At noon one day, I mentioned 'Oh, I am really hungry!'

2 of my Dutch colleagues promptly corrected me - 'no you are not, you can survive!'

I was a bit stupefied with that comment, my eyes became like big question marks... which led to some explanations...

'In the Dutch language, the usage of the word for hunger implies that the person in question has not had a meal in many days and will starve to death shortly... the correct word for when you want to eat is - trek - literally translated - appetite..'

Perhaps there are not too many hungry people in The Netherlands.. or other (so called) developed countries and hence the usage of appetite v/s hunger. But how is it that the usage of the english language has become such that appetite has been replaced by hunger?? maybe the users of the english language in the (so called) developing countries have guided this subtle change of meaning??