Just as fermion zero modes can alter the degeneracy and quantum numbers of
a soliton, fermion energies can affect the form and stability of a nontopol
ogical soliton. We discuss the kink in a two-dimensional linear sigma model
and show that when coupled to fermions, the kink is no longer an extremum
of the energy functional. The kink in this model possesses many similaritie
s to the electroweak string in the Weinberg-Salam model.