I would suggest having the degradation of the status effects be gradual, and that their initial stats be interleaved, so that typically, only one or two would ever become a problem at any given time. For instance, say at the start of the game, rather than every bar resting at 100%, all waiting to drop to noticeable levels at the same time, start hunger at 75%, so that it would be the first issue the player would need to deal with, and without interruption from others.

Hello. I am new here. I'm glad that your post was the first one that I've seen because it really has some good ideas. And its sad that so many people discourage innovation just because they are afraid of it. Like, "No! you can't possibly do that, because it wont be fun!!!" LOL.

As for the hunger element, I think the mmorpg "Tibia" has done that already, and as for complex positive / negative stat mods, well, there was a game for the old sega named Exile... Which was a port of a game named XRL for a computer named NEC which was never released in the states. In that original version you could ingest hallucinogens which would raise certain stats for example spellcasting at the expense of disrupting others for example stamina...

To add to your idea if food sharing becomes customary amongst players (if it is a multiplayer game) as travelers meet and interact then poisoning food might become a viable strategy among guild / RvR rivalry.

Good luck with your progressive game idea as it really sounds interesting.