Hype is never good for anything
I'll try to explain to the best of my limited knowledge. Note that I know all this because my feeding habits are EXTREMELY unhealthy
So first - you have to set the bar on what is a health food. Is it a food that brings you extra health, is it one that makes you more healthy, or is it one that keeps you where you started ?
Pretty much any non-processed food, used with moderation, is healthy. It's the non-processed and moderation parts that are the touchy parts. Very difficult to follow both in the modern world.
So we get to the healthy part. The only healthy food, one that literally makes you healthy, are things that grow, as opposed to things that you have to track and kill. I'm not saying this in any sort of maniacal vegetarian or vegan way. It's just that they are the foods that contain all the nutrients you need. In abundance, and provided a variety of choices, they cover all your needs.
From an evolutionary point of view though, they have a fatal flaw - they pack plenty of good stuff, but in small quantities. You need to eat a boatload just to survive.
So Humanity went smart, and figured out that catching critters that have already done the work for us, and packed plenty of plant-provided energy into muscle mass, is a fine idea. Eat meat, get energy fast, spend the time you don't spend looking for berries (TONS of them) on other things, such as creating civilized stuff - hey, that's not bad.
So we come to yogurt. Well, yogurt is a basic health staple. In the sense that - it's - how to call it... a self-contained "full spectrum" food staple.
Now what does that mean - well, imagine you get several healthy humans and spread them on separate desert islands.
And you dropship foods on them.
- You bomb island 1 with meat products only. Juicy steaks and bacon. Nothing else.
- Island 2: Bread an pasta only. Nothing else. All carbs, basically.
- Island 3: Chocolate. Boatloads of it. Nothing else.
- Island 4: Fruits and veggies.
Island 5: Yogurt. Real natural good one.
The meat guys will be strong and healthy binging on all that protein, till they get gout. Gout was called "The disease of the Kings" by the way. Why - because only rich people got it. Why - because only they could afford it. But that's a topic of its own.
The bread guys will get all that carbs bring and will still be unhealthy as hell.
The chocolate guys let's not even start. To cover their calorie intake requirements and not starve they'll have to die from other stuff.
The veggies guys - they'll be healthy but will need to spend half of their time eating and the other half - in the crapper.
The yogurt guys will be miserable, but will survive.
Leave all the survivors on the islands though, or they'll come to get you.
So - yogurt has everything to keep you alive. It's the first food you'll be fed after coming back from the other side when convalescent. It's the first food you'll get in many middle eastern hospitals after major procedures. It's the first food women who just gave birth will get. In short - it's the best bang for the buck as far as utility & healthiness vs ease of digestion goes. Same as chicken broth and whatnot.
It's one of the very few foods that you can eat forever, only yogurt, and (usually) survive with no long term complications (well, if Olympics level constipation, protein excess and tooth enamel corrosion in the long term are no complications).
As for using yogurt in Western society - it's good for the gut. But eating healthy otherwise also is. So - given the abundance of choices- its usefulness at least partly lies in filling you up in a healthy (if unexciting) way, and preventing you from eating really bad crap instead. At that specific time.
