What's the difference between fats and cholesterol?

When I read about eggs having significant amount of cholesterol relative to daily dietary cholesterol intake, I asked myself what is cholesterol? Can I use the terms 'fats' and 'cholesterol' interchangeably? I am used to eating cheeseburgers and fries (which I find so greasy) because they are 'fast foods', able to keep up with my time. So I got so concerned on this one. I tried searching for a reliable site which could explain to me what cholesterol is. And here's what I found. According to the KidsHealth site of Nemours Foundation, cholesterol is a waxy substance created by the liver and found in certain foods. Cholesterol is actually helping my body to make vitamin D and some hormones, build cell walls and produce bile salts needed to help digest fat! This is my first time to read a thing known to be bad as cholesterol doing me good. So the body produces just enough cholesterol to do these functions even if I don't take foods with cholesterol.

I searched again for academic sites that can help me in this. According to Harvard University School of Public Health, it is not the amount of fat I eat that causes certain fatal disease(s) but the type of fat I eat. This brought me back to that saturated and trans-fats I mentioned in my previous post. These two are actually bad fats, meaning they increase the risk of getting such diseases as atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries because cholesterol is deposited on the walls of arteries and forms a hard substance called plaque. Now over time this plaque narrows the arteries. That will cause complications that eventually lead to having a heart attack or a stroke (grabbed that one from KidsHealth). On the other hand, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are good fats which are fats that lower the chances of getting diseases.

This image is from ABC Health and Wellbeing site.

So where's the connection between fats and cholesterol? I went back to that Harvard University's article and it said that the biggest thing that could influence the cholesterol level in my blood is the mix of fats in my diet and not the amount of cholesterol I take. Their recommendation is to substitute good fats for bad fats. Also, avoid trans fats. Those are the keys to a healthy diet!