I tend to use <pre></pre> to wrap my text that needs to keep the format created from a textarea within a form.
Code:
<body>
<pre>
this is the
easy way to format
simple form text.
</pre>
</body>
it could also look like
Code:
<body>
<pre><?PHP echo $StuffFromTextArea; ?></pre>
</body>
goodluck.