The move from disease treatment to disease prevention represents an exciting and positive step forward in promoting the health of young children. In modern society, though, health-related messages are part of a broad socialization process in which adults often transmit confusing and contradictory messages to children. To counter this condition, the health of children could be promoted and protected on a broad scale by including a health information component in the curricula of licensed early childhood education facilities or Head Start programs, which serve as many as 25.5 percent of American children under the age of 6. These educational programs should extend to children's rights to health information, to knowledge about hazards in the environment, to demedicalization of health, and to health promotion and disease prevention education in the classroom. A health-enhancing approach in educational programs for young children would include the following five key dimensions: student independence, autonomy, and internal locus of control; nutritional awareness; physical fitness; stress awareness and management; and environmental sensitivity. To further promote children's health, teachers and parents could form problem-solving groups and link with networks of diverse organizational systems oriented towards health promotion. Adults sufficiently conscious of their responsibility for the child's well-being would transform the home and school into health centers. (RH)