Using data from the Older Adult Project within the Health Promotion Research Program at Northern Illinois University, this study examined four dimensions of health conception and their relationship to six dimensions of health-promoting lifestyle in a population of older adults (n=364). A battery of instruments was administred to all subjects to measure health conception, health-promoting lifestyle, importance of health, perceived control of health, perceived health status, perceived benefits of exercise, perceived barriers to exercise; demographic information was also obtained. Using these data, an analysis of covariance was conducted to compare the goodness of fit of two alternate models of the relationship between health conception and health-promoting lifestyle derived from the literature. Model A hypothesized strength of health conception as the single underlying dimension progressively related to the four health conception scales (eudaimonistic, adaptive, role performance, and clinical); Model B suggested that the adaptive and eudamonistic health conception variables were strongly related to one another. Results of the analysis suggest that Model B was best fitted to the data. A discussion of these findings and their implications ensues, and recommendations for further research for are made. References are included and structural equation charts of the two models under investigation are appended. (TE)