William "The Refrigerator" Perry weighed 382 pounds when he helped the Chicago Bears win the 1986 Super Bowl. If anyone could pull off "fat, but healthy," it would be a super-sized, superstar player like Perry. But down the road, The Fridge developed a whole roster of health woes.

That shouldn't surprise you at all.

But unfortunately, there's been a lot of talk about "fat, but healthy" in the media lately, with headlines declaring, "Why obesity protects against heart disease and heart attack."

Finally, a top-notch study has shut that refrigerator door once and for all.

Researchers found that many obesity studies examining the link between obesity and mortality didn't distinguish between people who have always been normal weight, and those who were a normal weight at the time of the study but overweight or obese earlier in life.

So they identified the folks who were formerly overweight and separated them from those who had always been a normal weight. They then looked at the health history of the overweight and obese compared with always-normal weight folks.

Guess what? At no time did being overweight ever afford protection against health problems.

So if you have a few pounds to shed, don't delay. You can reverse the damage of excess fat if you walk 10,000 steps every day, do jumping and resistance exercises, and avoid toxins like secondhand smoke and risky air pollution.

You should also avoid processed foods, refined carbohydrates, red meat, egg yolks, and added sugars and syrups. Do enjoy nuts, seeds, fruits and veggies, and salmon and ocean trout.