What is the purpose of this pedantry? Plenty of children do not get the appropriate nutrition during the day due to food insecurity, and for many the only consistent meal they get is at school. Why argue over technical definitions of starvation?
You wouldn't say that someone who choked on a glass of water to have drowned, or someone who received a momentary shock from frayed cord to have been electrocuted.
Words have meaning, it's not pedantic to comment on the usage of a word that has a different meaning entirely from manner in which it is being used, in what I suspect is an attempt at an appeal to emotion.
What is the outcome of a flame starved of oxygen? A plant starved of light? A person starved of food?