SUMMARY

Helping people acquire knowledge has a place in all strategies of health promotion regardless of whether the strategy is based on the Knowledge-Attitude-Behaviour model, the Empowerment model or the Community Action model. Knowledge is one class of belief, the others being opinion, dogma and myth or fallacy. Knowledge differs from the other classes in that accepting it as true can be justified However, in the field of diet and health and in most other fields of health promotion this distinction is difficult to make in practice. The difficulties of identify-ing knowledge are compounded when complex scienti-fic observations are translated into simpler statements for use in health promotion. Whether a belief is true or Key words: attitude; behaviour, knowledg