Nowadays a movement of public health awareness has just begun through the recent health promotion law in Korea. Implementation of the health promotion requires a pluralistic process involving public and private participants from many sectors and backgrounds. The most important thing in promoting health is the appropriate role of government in fostering personal behavior change. ‘Health promotion’ has been a highly fashionable term; however it has been used in many different ways unfortunately, often without any clarification of meaning. It is because the meaning of health promotion is diverse and broad. Therefore this article focuses on the categorization of the diverse meaning of health promotion. Additionally. it puts stress on the flexibility of health promotion.