The FAA says the guidelines are far more about safety than fitness. Specifically, a condition called obstructive sleep apnea is being targeted.
OSA interferes with sleep at night causing drowsiness during the day. Needless to say, nobody wants a drowsy pilot or air traffic controller.
The new rules will not allow those identified to receive their certification to fly until they are treated. The tests will begin during annual medical check-ups. Anyone having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above will have to be treated and cleared before they receive their certification to fly.
To put that in perspective, Fox news reports a BMI of 40 would generally be a man who is six feet tall and weighs 300 pounds.
The rule applies to private pilots as well as commercial and that is a sticking point for Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Vice President Rob Hackman.
"This policy seems to be based on one incident involving an airline flight," he said in a statement. "Analysis of a decade of fatal general aviation accidents by the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee didn't identify obstructive sleep apnea as a contributing or causal factor in any of the accidents studied," he finished.
CNN reports the new rule will affect close to 125,000 pilots overall.
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