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“You are what you eat,” no longer seems relevant.

We’re all fat.

So maybe it’s time to update the adage.

How about, “You are what you watch.”

Scarborough Research has compiled information on Americans’ viewing habits and broken them down along political lines.

Kay Fitzpatrick, research manager for the Naples Daily News, has refined the Scarborough numbers to show Southwest Florida’s tendencies.

You might expect the old stereotypes to hold up.

Republicans, a bunch of angry white males, watching The Golf Channel and NASCAR. Democrats, all touchy-feely, watching Lifetime. Independents going their own way, veering off the beaten track.

You would be right.

The national and local numbers are shocking only in that they so uniformly fail to shock. Scarborough, a joint venture between survey giants Arbitron and Nielsen, measures media behavior and demographics of Americans. It surveys more than 220,000 people annually measuring 2,000 consumer categories.

Media companies use the information to target advertisers. Says Fitzpatrick, “Scarborough Research is to newspapers what Nielsen is to TV.”

Last week Scarborough released its analysis of the political affiliations of cable television viewers.

The analysis isn’t meant to measure how many people are watching, but rather, the political leanings of those who are. In the survey lexicon, an audience is said to “skew” one way or another.

For example, the national audience that skews most heavily Republican is that of FOX News Channel. Surprise, surprise. Republicans are 42 percent more likely than the average consumer to be FNC viewers.

The most heavily Democratic skew nationally is Black Entertainment Television. Democrats are 78 percent more likely than the average consumer to be BET viewers.

And then there are the independents. Networks that skew most heavily independent are The N, G4 and Fuse. Huh?

Following FOX News with a Republican-heavy national audience are The Golf Channel, Speed Channel and Country Music Television.

Cable networks with Democrat-laden viewership include SoapNet, Lifetime and Court TV.

Comedy Central rounds out the top independent skewing national networks. (For those who are wondering, independent favorite The N is a nighttime network for teenagers, G4 focuses on video games and Fuse is music television featuring — what else? — independent artists.)

Southwest Florida audiences, those in Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Hendry, Glades and DeSoto counties, stray from the national norms in only a few instances.

In addition to FOX News and The Golf Channel, heavily Republican audiences here are drawn to Outdoor Life Network, Sci-Fi, TVLand and The Learning Channel.

Along with Lifetime (BET skews only slightly Democratic in the local market), Democrats hereabouts are more likely to be watching G4, Sun Sports, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC.

Revealing stuff. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to go watch The Golf Channel. That is, if I can get the remote away from my wife. She’s halfway through some movie on Lifetime.

E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com