In this paper two fears about health promotion are identified. The first concerns the ability to choose between proliferating expert advice, and the second concerns the fear of government interference in personal life. The paper goes on to outline the current place of health promotion in British health policy, and to discuss the relevance of recent research on health beliefs. The paper argues that work on 'lay epidemiology' has been overlooked by both critics and supporters of health promotion. From this vantage point the fears about health promotion can be seen to be exaggerated.